“…and the Alt-Right is Right but Repulsive.”

This is the sort of thing that pops into my head while making a turkey sandwich. I blame the provolone.

Tyler Cowen, an economics professor who writes at Marginal Revolution, lists “a few examples of where I have changed my mind due to economic evidence.”

“7. Mormonism, and other relatively strict religions, can have big anti-poverty effects. I wouldn’t say I ever believed the contrary, but for a long time I simply didn’t give the question much attention. I now think that Mormonism has a better anti-poverty agenda than does the Progressive Left.”

I’ve seen Cowen touch on this before. He is from New Jersey and teaches at George Mason University in Virginia and styles himself as an information omnivore who enjoys taking in lots of cultures at the ground level. I don’t know what specifically he has observed about the poor who embrace Mormonism. A week ago I took a day from work to fill my quorum’s assignment at the bishops’ storehouse near Andrews Air Force Base, a couple dozen miles from the George Mason campus.

We are in a very real sense called to support, sustain, teach, and preach the ideal, even when our lives don’t match it, because that ideal is a way God protects all of His children — especially those who would have no way to find it because their lives are so very not-ideal…sometimes for generations on end.

-thus the Mormon Woman.

That is an inspirational quote.  It has a breadth of vision–the nameless virtue has a breadth of vision–that is truly divine.  The soul that has the nameless virtue addresses itself to whole societies and ages.