Matt’s Marvelous Mailbag seeks to provide marginally adequate answers to much better questions about politics, economics, social life, theology, or any potpourri you see fit to have answered. Send questions to mailbag.bereans@gmail.com.  

Before we get going, I should make mention of Dr. Smith’s recently published “Zounds!” article, seeing as it evoked violent full-body convulsions from me as I tried to keep from shattering the peace and serenity due my fellow office workers.  He mentioned towards the end that I have “sticky ears.”  Upon reflection that may be an understatement; more appropriate would probably be “neodymium magnetic cochlear implants.”  Friends and acquaintances of mine will perhaps be familiar with 2.5 year-long college project I embarked upon in my PoliSci days known as the “Class Notes” series.  The idea sprang to me one day while sitting in an introductory class, and it quickly blossomed.  By my recollection, I possess ~400-600 quotes from my professors, giving me what is effectively a “quote garden,” to which I have devoted great care to keep ready and hilarious.  Here’s a sample from our very own Dr. Smith,

“Our liberties are not absolute.  Let’s say I want to eat whatever I want.  Well, if I want to eat babies, the State is obviously going to say ‘Uh, no’ and regulate that.  There’s a difference between free speech and eating babies.”

Charmed, I’m sure.  In short, I had some good college years.  Now, enough with the reflections.  To the mailbag!

Q: Alvin asks: “In Matthew 14:26, the disciples reference ghosts, and, in Luke 24:39, Jesus Himself references a ghost. (NIV). How should a Christian feel about ghosts?”

A: Let me start with a book recommendation on this one.  Dr. Michael Heiser, one of the scholars for Logos, has done a lot of work on what he calls the “Unseen Realm,” and conveniently has a book by the same name which I think would be immensely helpful for all to read not only on this subject but other areas of theology as well.

Now to the actual question, I realize that inquiries like these run the great and equal risks of cynicism and madness, so I’ll err on the side of caution here.  I think C.S. Lewis had it more or less accurate, on a related subject, when he said the Christians can make two great mistakes when it comes to angels and demons.  The first is not believing in them at all (cynicism), and the second is taking an unhealthy interest in and fascination with them (madness).  I think it’s proper to apply the same line of reasoning to this issue.  When you read the Old and New Testaments, you’ll find that good, faithful believers in both cases had categories for these types of events.  They lived in the physical realm, as we do, yet they understood that there was a very real spiritual realm present as well.  Paul, if no one else, touches on this all the time in his epistles.  They were not supposed to be ghost hunters nor were they trying to be, but they did have a framework within which they could make sense of the more “bunk-in-the-night” type events.  What does this practically mean for us?  Keep living as a faithful ambassador for Christ in the realm that you inhabit.  We live in the physical realm, and we’re supposed to keep it that way while maintaining a category for the spiritual realm as well.  That’s all I’m going to say on this simply because the rabbit trails are deep on this subject, and this is not the best place to discuss them.  Check out Dr. Heiser’s work if you want to know more.

Q: Dr. Smith asks: “If forced to choose, what would you say is the best political film ever made?”

A:  Wow….so many choices.  It’s honestly a tie for me between “Dr. Strangelove” and “The Death of Stalin.”  Both are so incredibly rich with skewering satire, and each time I re-watch them I keep picking up on more of the humor.  Just as an example, there’s one line in “Death of Stalin” where Khrushchev and an associate are discussing how to take power after Stalin’s fittingly wretched end, when they see his daughter and start rushing against Beria and Malenkov to gain her attention.  As they run, Khrushchev (played by Steve Buscemi) says, “We need to start coming up with a plan,” to which his panting acquaintance replies, “How can you run and plot at the same time?”  *Clap* *Clap* *Clap* Bravo….well done.  Honestly, the quality of both films is directly proportional to the time spent watching them.  There’s simply too much to take in with just one viewing.

In the end, I’d probably go with “Death of Stalin” just by a hair simply because each character in that movie is just perfectly cast and stereotyped, but both the films are tremendously well made.  Plus, Peter Sellers’s trifold role in “Dr. Strangelove” is probably one of the great film accomplishments of all time and should not go unpraised.

Q: Dr. Smith also asks: Would you eat this product instead of actual peanut butter and jelly separated and in their own, god-given, jars?

A: Would I?  Yes.  Should I?  No.  There is something definitionally wrong with this concept.

Q: Jordan asks: “What do you think about Macron’s remarks for a ‘European army?'”

A: Why doesn’t he just sync up with other NATO members?  There’s a wonderful TIME piece on this that addresses the fundamental problem with Macron’s idea, namely that Europe and frankly the rest of the free world really needs U.S. military support.  Let’s lay aside for a second the question of whether or not this is a good thing and simply acknowledge it as a fact.  Macron may believe that he can no longer depend on the U.S. for protection, but I highly doubt that realistically, the U.S. would just sit back and let Europe burn in the event of an invasion, even with Trump in power.  Go find a graph of our military spending comparison with other NATO countries; the disparity borders on absurd.  Even in terms of percentages, the U.S. still comes out clearly on top.  Right now, the U.S. military, and, by extension NATO, is in a much greater position to defend Europe than any European Army would be.  Moreover, the fact that Merkel joined in the call for this army is a little hypocritical of her, seeing as the German Bundeswehr is massively underfunded and ill-prepared at the moment.

Look, if they have a feasible plan to do it, more power to them.  But let’s not ignore the reality that we currently and historically have fronted a more than healthy amount of Europe and others’ defenses.  Right now, this idea looks more like a plucky bunch of adolescents turning to their parents and saying, “Ew, go away; you’re so weird……..BTW, when’s dinner?”

Q: Axel Oxenstierna, Count of Sodermore, Governor-General of Prussia, Lord High Chancellor of Sweden asks: “How can we improve the recount process? Is there a case to be made for moving control of elections and procedures to the federal government?”

A: You can start by firing the chief chuckleheads and the rest of the motley crew running this Floridian farce.  When you miss a machine recount by two minutes because the results would benefit Rick Scott and alter voter forms in the hopes of gaining illegitimate votes in case some judge rewrites the election law, you’re incompetent, corrupt, or both.

More to the point, let’s keep the solution localized to the problem children.  Most counties have no problem with their election procedures; it’s primarily just a few muppets who can’t seem to get it together.  Honestly, both sides should be rightly infuriated with this process if for no other reason than that it gives the appearance of election fraud, even if none is actually present.  Realistically, the solution should not be tremendously difficult.  Florida already has election laws these officials should know, and, if they willfully flaunt those laws, they should be fired, plain and simple.  We do not, or at least, should not tolerate this type of blatant incompetence when it comes to our elections, especially at a tense time as this.  If the laws are too complex, perhaps we should rewrite them, but in this case, I don’t think “Have your ballots in by 3 p.m. and please don’t alter voter forms,” is a terribly complicated set of instructions.

The other thing that may help is some modernization in the voting process.  If possible, we need to send handwritten voting the way of the dodo and move to all machine voting; it just causes too many problems.  My home county of Hancock (Ohio) has a very simple, easy-to-understand presentation on their machines that offers a double-check before submitting a vote, and I have never had any troubles voting with them.  In a phrase, “The future is now, old man.”  Let’s get with the times and modernize this process; life’s too short to fuss this much about recounts.

Q: Axel F also asks: “538 has touched on the large difference between Republican and Democratic parties in terms of electing female legislators.  Is this a problem, long-term or short-term, for Republicans?

A: Not necessarily.  As the article goes on to explain, there are perfectly reasonable reasons why Democrats tend to elect more women, and I don’t think it’s automatically a problem.  Personally, I generally care much more how or what the governing body is doing rather than what it looks like, so I don’t see any sort of metaphysical, moral problem with this.  More practically, it’s possible that this could have some negative election consequences for Republicans; we know that women tend to vote more Democratic, and that gap has been widening as of late.  On those grounds, I suppose it could pose some sort of problem.  There is, I suppose, an underlying assumption that undergirds a question of this sort, namely whether we do or don’t assume that electing any group of individuals based on race/gender/etc. is a good goal in and of itself.  That’s a premise that I reject because it very quickly leads to intersectionality, identity politics, power politics, and other really bad ideas of governance.

Q: Elizabeth asks: You’ve had some challenging questions so far so I thought I’d give you one that should be pretty easy to answer. What is the best Thanksgiving pie?  This question is the source of much debate at our house. 

A: God bless you, Elizabeth.  Obviously, the correct answer is pecan pie, which is just about the closest thing to ambrosia any of us mortals are going to find.  I have a predilection for gooey, sugary globs of flavor-blasting, sense-tingling symphony, and pecan pie easily fills that slot.  The only, and I do mean only, thing that strikes against pecan pie is the enhanced need for moderation.  Let’s be honest; you would probably be better off health-wise by just drinking pure maple syrup.  If I sit down with an apple or blueberry pie, I don’t feel too bad about cutting a larger slice or going for extras or dolloping a healthy slab of ice cream on top.  Not so with pecan pie.  If I even think of going for a second piece of pecan pie, my pancreas picks up its little red phone to the brain and has a rather heated exchange.  Anyway, hope that settles it once and for all.

Q: Stephen asks: “Since Dr. Smith mentioned you are an expert in medieval party games, in the game Settlers of Catan is it better to go for the longest road or largest army and which resource card is the best; wood, brick or wool?”

A: I’ve always found ‘largest army’ to be an easier card to hold onto personally, so I’ll throw my hat in with that one.  As to the second part….goodness, I don’t know.  It’s kind of like of asking, “Which finger do you prefer the most?” Um…well, all of them if possible.  I guess I’d go with brick because I’m always looking to build stuff with brick, and I never have any brick.  I’ll be sitting there, flush with enough wool and wood to clothe and house the Russian army, and I can’t make forward progress because people won’t trade 1 brick for 57 of my wool and 80 of my wood.  If you ever wanted to make a strong case for protectionism, Settlers of Catan would be the place to start.

Q: Sam asks: “How should one get their news?”

A: Legally, preferably.  After that it largely breaks down to personal preference, and I don’t have a strict “should” on news-gathering.  Personally, I use Fox, BBC, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and a multiplicity of podcasts; and it works pretty well for me as a well-rounded mix of news sources.  If I’m going to be completely honest, I am a huge fan of the Wall Street Journal in particular, and I think everyone should have a subscription.  Their reporting is clean, excellent, and well-rounded; and their opinion pieces are just outstanding (borderline intellectual).  As for podcasts, the Daily Wire has a nice one-two punch with Andrew Klavan on cultural analysis and Ben Shapiro for raw political commentary.  If you like podcasts, I think they are a great way to stay on top of the news, particularly since a lot of people don’t make time for reading anymore.  If not, do find some way to carve out a couple of minutes for reading.  There are plenty of news-aggregating apps that will shove the top stories your way if you are truly lost and need a place to start (Bundle is one I used for a while).

That’s all for now, folks.  Tune in next week for more mailbag fun, and don’t forget to send in your questions to mailbag.bereans@gmail.com