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.  

Well, here we are. 2020. Just a few days in, and it’s already more exciting than most of 2019. Buckle up, folks. It’s shaping up to be quite a year, but first…let’s do a mailbag!

Q: Nathan asks: “If and when the Senate holds its trial, do you see any Republican defections? Most talked possibles are Romney, Collins, and Murkowski. Also, do you see any Democrat defections? Most talked about are Doug Jones and my own State’s Joe Manchin.”

A: Those would be the likely suspects, yes. Obviously, they probably will not matter terribly much, but they’ll generate some press for themselves at least. Let’s take them one by one:

• Romney: I doubt he’ll defect. He may speak about open-mindedness and wax nobly about the seriousness of the process, kind of like how Jeff Flake did during the Kavanaugh hearings, but I really would be surprised to see him flip. Maybe John Bolton has some sort of killer info we don’t know about yet, but I rather think not. All other things being equal, I’d say Romney votes against impeachment.
• Collins: Similar to Romney, I really doubt she’ll vote for impeachment. I would not be surprised to see some speeches decrying the whole process on both sides from her, but I think she’ll vote against it as well.
• Murkowski: Now things get more interesting. If I were to pick a Republican, really on any issue, to buck the party line, it would be Murkowski. She was the first one to raise questions about the Senate’s trial process, so she’ll probably be the first to defect if any do. Ultimately, though, I think she will remain against impeachment unless something new emerges that really hurts Trump.
• Doug Jones: Nah…I think he knows his time is ticking, unless Alabama runs another Roy Moore, so I think he’ll vote for impeachment.
• Joe Manchin: You think Manchin ever gets tired of immediately being the focal point for every crucial vote on anything ever? It’s gotta wear on him at least a little bit you’d think. Regardless, I think he votes against impeachment? “What? Really?” Yah, I think so. West Virginia is 59% against impeachment, Manchin often flips, and someone on this list needs to be a surprise defector, so I’ll choose Manchin.

Beyond these people, I think the others you could consider would Cory Gardner and Martha McSally, but I doubt they’ll flip honestly. They are more vulnerable, but I don’t think it plays well with their base to vote for impeachment. All things considered, I suspect a party line vote with maybe 1 or 2 defections. Beyond that, I think we know about how this is going to go down. Maybe something pops up in a hypothetical Senate trial, but, aside from that, things probably won’t get that crazy.

Q: Sam asks: “With all this talk of expanded social programs on the left, I’m often inclined that to point out that there are charities that fill any of these gaps in society. Why do you think the movement on the left is for nationalized everything instead of a charitable movement? Let them spend their money and their time directly on the issue they view as most important in their local and national society.”

A: I try not to attribute to malice what I can more easily attribute to either ignorance or incompetence. In this case, I think it’s just pure ignorance. People often just don’t recognize that resources sent to the government are resources taken away from other activities such as charities. People often don’t know just how bad government waste tends to be, and thus money sent to government-directed aid is less likely to reach its intended target than privately-directed aid. People often assume that because ‘the government’ is doing it, something must be getting done. You get the point.

Q: Daniel asks: ” Picking LSU or Clemson in the title game? (sorry about the Buckeyes).”

A: Grumble, grumble….stupid targeting call….grumble, Lawrence ducked his head into it…growl, grumble, everyone agreed it was a fumble returned for a TD….growl, scowl, moan, we deserve to be there……but I digress.

LSU, and not just because I hope Burrow (a former Buckeye, did you know?) throws for 18 TDs against them. LSU is simply the better team. Clemson is no chump, but LSU looks unstoppable. And, lest I delve back into this again, Clemson did need everything to go their way in the semifinal game even to have a chance. At least 3-4 crucial calls, probably 6-9 failures to close a drive or make a critical play by the Buckeyes; in a normal world, it’s OSU vs. LSU, but we apparently live in a world predestined before the foundations were laid to spite the Buckeyes this postseason. Ah well, LSU is so clearly better that if Clemson wins this, they will either have benefited from favorable reffing/a serious implosion from LSU, or they will have played the game of their lives. Either way, I will be donning purple and gold for this one and burning any orange I have in my wardrobe.

Q: Daniel also asks: “Why are Dems in such an uproar and “panic” over the decision to take out Soleimani and its consequences? (apart from because Trump did it). Why weren’t they so panicky and distraught when Obama ordered the Bin Laden raid? Or is my parenthetical the only real reason?” 

A: Well, I hate to say it’s just the “orange man bad” syndrome, but I do think that’s a large part of it, if not the main reason. I will say that there is more seriousness associated with Soleimani because a sovereign nation is more directly connected with his death than with bin Laden’s, hence more possibility of an actual war breaking out. A few points on that though.

1. People seem to not realize just how precarious Iran’s situation is or how powerful the American military is. The WW3 memes are amusing, yes, but this would be more like the Gulf War honestly. America is a military hyper-power that just demonstrated that it can reach out and touch whatever the Iranians possess, and Iran is hemorrhaging internally right now due to constant protests and the sanctions. If we want to just close their ports with drones, we can do that tomorrow. Open war with the US means the end of the current Iranian leadership in a matter of weeks, if that.
2. Iran is an international bully. The problem with bullies is that if you appease them they walk all over you. If you fight them they become volatile. But they are a brute fact, and you have to deal with their presence. Soleimani’s death weakens this particular bully. They will probably lash out, and we’ll see that. What we won’t see are all the attacks and power grabs that are now impossible due to his death and all the lives that are saved as a result.

Q: Daniel finally asks: “Apparently the United Methodist Church is splitting over gay marriage. While I don’t believe or at least know of any who participate on this blog who are under that umbrella, how should we (mostly Baptist and/or non-denominational but others also) be preparing for this if this problem occurs in our church(es) and how can we best defend our Biblical values while not turning people off from Christ in this debate?”

A: Yah, well I do have friends inside the church, one of whom is a roommate, so I’m sure this is going to come up in conversation once or twice. There’s a line in the Screwtape Letters where Screwtape recoils from discussing sex because “it’s such a tedious topic,” and I’m starting to reach that point on the whole gay marriage debate. It is just endless.

I have written on this before in previous mailbags, so look back over my June 2019 mailbags if you want my thoughts in more detail, but I’ll say this. You can only do so much to not turn people off from Christ. Be kind, be respectful, remember the high ethic of love, but at the end of the day you’re still telling others that a new king has rightful ownership over not just their lives but over creation itself. Some people are going to recoil at that, I’m sorry to say. You cannot control the other person’s reaction, only your own. If they want to fly off the handle, there is not much I can do to stop that.

A brief note on the ethics themselves, just for kicks: Christ remains at the center, but do realize what exactly that means. He said people would know his disciples by their fruit, and he told them to follow His commandments. A renewed ethic of sexual purity is right at the core of Christ and his movement. “Oh but he never addressed that don’t you know?” Oh yes, I’m sure a Torah-observant Jew, the best there ever was we are told, was fully on board with homosexuality or had no opinion about it.

Q: Marcus Aurelius asks: “The federal government required the Church of Latter Day Saints to give up polygamy for Utah to get statehood. Does this undermine freedom of religion?”

A: The Supreme Court didn’t say it did, so I guess not. Establishment and Free Exercise cases are tricky business, the main problem being that the Supreme Court has been annoyingly inconsistent. Court tests rise and fall then rise again like legal zombies…it’s wild. Anyway, as far as polygamy goes, the main case here is Reynolds v. U.S., which stated people could hold any belief but could not engage in any activity, thus polygamy became officially non grata.