Michael Silver, writer for Yahoo! Sports has a nice column on the San Francisco 49ers new starting quarterback, J.T. O’Sullivan. Even though it’s been a while since I’ve given much attention to the NFL, the Niners are my team and what school did O’Sullivan play his college ball? UC Davis. Ah yeah, an Aggie leading the 49ers to victory. It doesn’t get much better than that for this sports fan. (Except for five Super Bowls in 15 years.)

Both candidates for U.S. president have now picked their running mates. I won’t comment on the veep nominees except to say Barack Obama and John McCain clearly made their choices only to exploit Joe Biden’s and Sarah Palin’s popularity in their respective home states to rake in the electoral mother lode that Delaware and Alaska represent (both states bring in a whopping three electoral votes).

The Palin and Biden selections, however, should make us think about the vice presidency for a bit. Remember a year ago, as the possible candidates for president started lining up, many people talked about how this was going to be an especially unique election because it was the first time since 1968 that neither an incumbent president nor an incumbent vice president would be one of the major parties’ nominees? The field was wide open in ways we haven’t seen in decades, the pundits said. Some questioned George W. Bush in 2004 for sticking with Dick Cheney—who has always said he had no intention of running for president—and not grooming a successor. It is an interesting point since lots of vice presidents have succeeded their bosses, but when we look at recent history, it is actually rare that a sitting vice president takes over the executive branch via the electoral process. In fact, it happened only once since 1900.

Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, and George H. W. Bush were all vice presidents who later became president. Roosevelt, Coolidge, Truman, and Johnson all started their first terms as president when their predecessors died while in office—oddly enough, they also all won reelection after finishing out the previous term. Roosevelt took over William McKinley’s term after McKinley succumbed to complications from the gunshot he received in an assassination attempt. Coolidge became president when Warren G. Harding died from either a heart attack or a stroke. Harry Truman succeeded Franklin Delano Roosevelt when Roosevelt passed away due to a cerebral hemorrhage. Lyndon Johnson became president after John F. Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas.

Nixon was Dwight D. Eisenhower’s vice president and later won the election to become president, but it was not as Eisenhower’s successor. He actually failed in his attempt to follow Eisenhower by losing to Kennedy in 1960 and did not win a presidential election until 1968. Since 1900, vice presidents who actually ran after their tenure as second in command—the number is actually pretty low—it was more often the case that they lost.

Ford succeeded Nixon after Nixon resigned, but unlike the presidents who began their first term by inheriting the office after the predecessor’s death, Ford did not win reelection.

That means since 1900 only one vice president has actually succeeded their outgoing boss by election. In 1988 George H. W. Bush won the election for president as Ronald Reagan’s sitting vice president.

How much weight then, do presidential nominees and their parties give to trying to create a line of succession when they choose the running mates? It seems that hoping to create legacy via lineage would not play as much of a factor as the other factors do—shoring up weaknesses, trying to gain an electoral advantage in a state or region, etc.

A few months ago I became aware of the book, Electing Not to Vote, edited by Ted Lewis. I haven’t heard much discussion about it, but it opened my ears to a sentiment within some of the American Church who choose, for various reasons, to abstain from voting. I’ve spent a good portion of my life swimming in the conservative Christian waters of America, where voting in the right people and for the right laws was seen as a means to create a more Christian society. The Anabaptist, Free Church, Christian Anarchy (still an odd term in my opinion) traditions are relatively new to me. I’ve been curious to read why people would opt out of democratic engagement—including voting—based upon their Christian commitments.

David Fitch offers some arguments against voting in his post “’Not Voting’ as an Act of Christian Discernment: Calling the Emerging Church Into a Different Kind of Faithfulness.” Fitch follows Stanley Hauerwas in seeing that voting is an act of violence, wherein 51% of the population can tell 49% of the population what to do. Over on Emergent Village, Anthony Smith offers a response to Fitch and others that, in my opinion, knocks the ball out of the park: “Not Voting as Violence: or, Why I Get Suspicious When White Men Tell Me Not to Vote.”

Both Smith and Fitch address the matter of power associated with voting. Smith makes a strong case that the discussion to refrain from democratic discourse often comes from a place of privilege and power rather than acting as a protest to power. He writes:

Voting, as it is oftentimes seen by historically marginalized groups, is a precious gift. It is not seen, within the language game of the prophetic black church, as a form of violence. That voting is seen as means of violence can only come from Christians who don’t know what it is like to be without the gift. This is why the loudest voices for political disengagement on Gospel grounds tend to be of lighter hue. It is another form of advantage to eschew voting. I profoundly agree with Christians engaging in anti-imperial practices or pro-kingdom activities that give sign to another world in our midst.

I think Hauerwas’ definition of violence is especially odd. As long as there are honest and free elections, I fail to see how elections are necessarily violent. Elections are meant, however imperfectly, to curb violence. Within a set of established laws, the majority rules, not the most physically powerful. If people enter voluntarily into an agreement that after discourse and debate, a vote is held and whichever side receives the most votes wins, is not violence actually avoided? Elections can certainly be used by majorities to employ and legitimize violence against minorities as we have seen throughout history. To be fair to Hauerwas, he can certainly point to a history of democracy where elections are swayed by money and violent power. That is, the project of democracy is still trying to live up to its ideals.

What I think we need to hear from those suggesting we opt out of voting is the fact that voting and democracy are not substitutes for the kingdom of God. Furthermore, in the West, we have a tendency to see democracy as an end in and of itself. Democracy is a tool towards organization and discourse and like other tools, it needs to be wielded with care. However imperfect it may be, democracy is a means of getting as many people to the table as possible. We certainly have seen democracy employed for good and for ill, which is why we need people of character to engage in the democratic process rather than to assume that the democratic process by itself will create people of character.

What are your thoughts? Is voting something a Christian in a democracy must do or should do? Is it something a Christian should abstain from, or at least should have significant reservations about engaging? Is Smith right in his assessment of those who say we should opt out of voting?

Rudy linked to an opinion by Jonah Goldberg on National Review Online, “The Spoiled Children of Capitalism.” “Leaving religion out of it, no idea has given more to humanity,” than capitalism, argues Goldberg. It has generated more wealth for more people than any economic system prior to it or since its inception and has given rise to innovations in health and sanitation that benefit all of humanity. Capitalism does produce goods and material wealth, but these are fringe benefits, Goldberg says. The real wealth that nations hold is more intangible, “the stuff in our heads, our hearts, and our books,” which “accounts for 82 percent of [the U. S.’] wealth.” Goldberg thus takes issue with the critics within capitalism that arise whenever markets take a downturn. He calls them the spoiled children of capitalism. These voices levy complaints that capitalism focuses too much on the individual and not on the group. Goldberg counters by naming some of the failures of socialism—inefficiency and infighting—and saying overall, capitalism has done more for humanity than the economic systems that state their primary goal is for developing community.

I think the opinion offers a helpful defense of capitalism. I appreciate his argument that a nation’s wealth is not only in terms of material goods. If the focus is merely on building more factories that produce products we want to consume, well then we don’t necessarily need a market economy to bring that about. I wish, however, Goldberg would give more attention to critics of capitalism that claim it has an atomizing effect on societies. Many of these concerns do not come from spoiled brats, but from considerate minds who have real questions about how capitalism shapes “the stuff in our heads, our hearts, and our books.” There is a feedback loop between our character and the systems we create. Yes, our values shape the market; we would do well to remember that the market returns the favor.

In a recent interview on the radio show, Speaking of Faith: The Business of Doing Good, Jonathan Greenblatt, co-founder of Ethos Water, discusses shifting capitalism away from the theories of economist and Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman, which have dominated capitalistic thought for the past fifty years. According to the program, Friedman was a strong proponent of the idea that the private sector can do a much better job than government at solving problems. (We certainly have seen great innovations come from the private sector to alleviate numerous problems around the world. Greenblatt agrees that governmental aid cannot be the only model for addressing global poverty. He sees much room and hope for an amalgamation of philanthropy, business innovation, and aid.) Greenblatt goes on to say, however, that Friedman saw, “that the purpose of a corporation is to generate profit for its shareholders.” Friedman argued, “the world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests.” If that is not the definition of atomization, I don’t know what is, and I’m concerned that Friedman’s theories have dominated capitalistic thinking for so long.

How is the Christian to look at the data before us? In Philippians 2.4, Paul writes, “Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” Friedman likely describes our natural instinct, that is, it does not take training to be selfish. Paul, on the other hand, gives us a vision of the world how God wants it and that vision demands character formation. Are Christianity and capitalism diametrically opposed to each other? I do not think so, but I may not say the same of Christianity and Friedmanism. Capitalism, if rightly focused on God and God’s purposes, can likely be a force of community, or social capital. While Greenblatt does not discuss any sort of a Christian basis for his understanding of economics, he does argue that our values should shape how markets and business operate. His vision is based in what he calls “pragmatic idealism.” With regard to Friedman’s understanding of shareholders and their inherent selfishness, Greenblatt says:

The challenge or the opportunity of today is that shareholders’ interests have changed, and they no longer think only about the bottom line. They realize that the bottom line needs to be considered on a more contextual basis. And so businesses that win in the marketplace will be those that deliver great products and services, make no mistake. They have to achieve profits and succeed in their categories, but at the same time you can drive social good in a way that creates a tighter, richer, and more enduring value proposition for everyone.

Goldberg is right to defend capitalism against those who see it as a failed system—I would not want to give up many of the innovations that have arisen because of it. Those that thoughtfully criticize capitalism for exploiting our selfish nature also have a legitimate argument. The criticisms of capitalism as it is now may be a matter of degree rather than kind. I would be curious to hear both Goldberg and capitalism’s critics respond to Greenblatt’s socially responsible business models and theories.

I plan on consulting FactCheck.org several times through the next few months. They’ve already got two corrections for the recent back and forth advertisements from the McCain and Obama campaigns.

Obama’s Celebrity Cred: A new McCain ad calls Obama a celebrity (true) who says he’ll raise taxes on electricity (false).

Obama’s Overstatement: An Obama ad says McCain’s campaign got $2 million from “Big Oil.” The total is actually $1.3 million.