Why should a Jew care whether Christianity lives or dies?

It comes down to this: Christianity is the Jews’ gift to mankind; the most important gift mankind has ever received. That so many modern leftists would say to themselves, 'All the more reason to hate the Jews,' merely underlines the point. The natural enemy of the Jew is the natural enemy of the Christian, too—the conscience-hater, the man who wants no witnesses. Why should a Jew care whether Christianity lives or dies? Because he must care whether the message of Judaism lives or dies, whether the mission of Judaism fails or succeeds.In the end, that hardly matters. The important question is not why a Jew, but why a human being should care about the fate of Christianity.
And the answer is exactly the same.

David Boaz on the 'social Darwinism' nonsense, and why it's nonsense.

Matt Welch on the irony of a libertarian being called a social Darwinist.

Like many politicans, Romney likes free speech, as long as there's "quality control". What Bill Clinton used to call a "truth detector"?

Don Cheadle, friend of justice.

The following was posted to my Facebook page as a response to a similar piece by one of my friends. The original is re-printed below, for purposes of authorial attribution and needful context.

Juan gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is as clean and good as it was when his ancestors pumped it up from wells they dug themsleves without the help of tree-hugging liberals. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are as safe to take as ever because some smart capitalist, in addition to financing the research which brought the medication to market, also determined that knowingly, willingly and negligently killing customers isn't a workable business plan. He also knew that where he failed, one of his competitors might succeed, putting him out of business and his employees out of work.

All but $10 of Juan's medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Juan gets it too. Aside from the fact that he didn't ask for it, he also wouldn't need it if not for the insurance in the first place. You see, Juan is the curious sort who long ago wondered why the costs of just about every other good or service on the market has a tendency to go down, except for healthcare. Reluctant to take the word of people who give him things he did not ask for and then demand gratitude, he looked into the matter himself and determined that using the insurance model to pay for health care is one of the things driving up the costs--that and his government's dictate that there are no such things as pre-existing conditions. Then, too, are all the regulations which arbitrarily add to the cost of it all.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Juan's bacon is as safe to eat as it was when his great-grandfather and grandfather were growing pigs on the family farm in South Texas during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Of course, now, thanks to regulations and all those other good things he asked no one to do for him, his pork costs a hell of a lot more than it did a century ago (adjusting for inflation, which was also brought to him by his government). Not only that, but thanks to all these regulations, and licensing fees, and inheritance taxes, Juan's ancestors could not today afford to go into farming in the first place, leading Juan to believe that the primary purpose of these regulations is, for the most part, to limit the entry of new competitors to the no-longer-very-free market.

In the morning shower, Juan reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some enterprising capitalist accurately forecast that consumers would have a preference for his product over his competitors' precisely because it was labelled. Juan, of course, doesn't really care as long as it cleans his @#$%ing hair, so he has no intention of expressing gratitude to anyone for it. He paid for shampoo that cleans his hair--label or no label--and he received shampoo that cleans his hair--label or no label. He figures that if he ever really wanted to know what was in his shampoo he could have called and asked the producer to email him a list. Or he could wash his hair, and the rest of his body with lye soap, like his ancestors. Again: he didn't ask anyone for this shit in the first place. After all, even if he could easily pronounce Dodecylbenzenesulfonate, he doesn't have a degree in chemistry so he has no @#$%ing idea what the hell it is, anyway.

Juan dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean not because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air but because the people who own those polluting factories discovered they couldn't breathe the shit in the air any more than people who don't own factories. On his view the liberals don't want clean air; they want purified air--or just fewer factories, which they will get due the costs of building and managing new ones. (You know, like oil refineries.)

He walks on a government-provided sidewalk because it's there, whether he wants it to be or not, whether he asked for it or not. If being lectured to by liberals--in addition to paying his taxes--is the price for walking on a sidewalk he didn't ask for, then he'd rather walk in the mud, like humans did for thousands of years without having to be made to kiss meddling liberals' asses for an alternative. (He smiles at the probablility that those humans who walked in the mud for those thousands of years would consider liberals to be whinning, snivelling little pusses. The Spartans would have killed them, or exiled them: dead weight.) As he walks, he shares the sidewalk with children on their way to the elementary school, supported at the local level by his property taxes and at the federal level by his income taxes. (His own children go to a private school, for which he foots the entire bill.) He tries not be too miffed that the people responsible for taking his money in the form of taxes then turn round and lecture him on the gratitude he owes them for what they have provided him at his cost and depriving him, in the process, of those things he might have preferred to spend the money on--had he been allowed to keep it and employ it as he, the earner of the money, saw fit. "Thugs and racketeers," he mutters to himself. "I wish they'd grind this sidewalk to powder and blow it up their asses."

As he stands in the subway car, tolerating his government-subsidized ride to work, he fondles the .45 semi-auto in his overcoat and hopes two things: (1) he doesn't get caught with it since his caring and benevolent government won't let him be responsible for his own safety without its kind permission (any more than it will permit him to be responsible for his own ride to work); and (2) he never has to use it (because his benevolent government doesn't exactly own and manage the safest subway system in the world). He politely smiles at the liberal standing next to him, lecturing him on the benevolence of the government, who takes money from people who for the most part never use the damn thing in the first place. The liberal demands gratitude from Juan for an opportunity he didn't ask for--the "opportunity" to be a contributor. The liberal says, "I object to people like you enjoying the benefits I and my ilk provide and criticizing us for providing them." He tries not to laugh too hard: this liberal don't provide shit; he's a @#$%ing fast food restaurant manager who receives tax credits.

Juan begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, because he doesn't belong to a union and is not bound to a collectively bargained employment agreement, which limits his pay to a figure approved by his union "brothers". Therefore, because of his superior marketable skills, as well as his skill as a negotiator, he makes better money than his unionized peers in other organizations. He has medical benefits, it's true. But this is not because liberal union members fought and died for it. (Another thing he didn't ask anyone to do for him.) It's because of U.S. domestic policy in WWII. Due to government policy, Juan learned in his private school, inflation grew both before and during WWII. As a “remedy,” caps on wage increases were imposed by the government. (Another financial set-back provided by your benevolent government.) In response, employers began to offer their employees health insurance to soften the blow and attract quality workers. ( WTF, mate? Imagine that: employers providing health care insurance, not because they were commanded by a benevolent government, but rather because of market considerations. Sometimes, it's an employees' market, not an employers' market. Again: WTF?) The federal government did not consider an increase in health benefits a violation of these wage controls, and the IRS (bless them for their infinite wisdom and generosity) ruled that health benefits were tax exempt for workers. After the wage caps were abolished, health insurance benefits became the norm and were not eliminated. Now, of course, these benefits, which started out as market driven benefits, are rights. And liberals want us to kiss their asses for (not!) procuring them for us. Thank you (relatively) free market.

It is noon-time and Juan needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. It's true that Juan's deposit is federally insured by the FDIC because some liberal wanted to protect Juan's money from bankers he determined were unscrupulous and ruined the banking system before the Great Depression. But Juan, again because he was privately educated, suspects that the liberal had no idea what unscrupulous actions the bankers took. Juan, on the other knows that the banking system wasn't ruined until after the stock market crash. Juan further knows that the stock market crash followed in predictable fashion on the heels of a great boom, a boom which was itself created by a fraudulent banking practice called "fractional reserve banking", which Juan, since he thinks its fraudulent, opposes. If banks were prohibited from practicing fractional reserve banking, he wouldn't need the @#$%ing FDIC. We wouldn't need the Federal Reserve, either, which would do away with inflation.

Unlike Joe the Republican (maybe!), Juan doesn't have a Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage or a below-market federal student loan. Consequently he doesn't feel a duty to express gratitude to some elitist liberal who decided that Juan and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime--things which cost him (i.e., the elitist) nothing. Juan wonders two things: (1) Who the hell is the liberal to decide for him what would make him better off and then to force it upon him? and (2) Why do liberals, since they feel so strongly about it, not start their own mortagage and student loan companies and extend below-market loans to the objects of their concern? Better yet, he thinks, why don't liberals found, fund and operate their own free universities? You know: do something that actually costs them--and only them--their own @#$%ing money.

It is true that Juan attended a state funded university. But he attended it, not because it was state funded but because it was in a city he wanted to live in while he went to college. He'd have gone to that state funded university even if it were private. (He spent six years working his way through that university for his bachelor's degree; he'd have had no problem spending eight years working his way through a private one). Moreover, he'd have had no problem taking out a market-priced student loan, spending fewer years working his way throught school and paying the loan off from money earned from his improved employment conditions. Juan happens to believe that without state funding inflating both the costs of a university education, as well as the grades awarded by universities, there could be more private universities. This increase in the number of universities, all competing for students, would drive down the cost of a university education. (It's a supply and demand kind of a thing. A liberal wouldn't understand.) Finally, as a believer in privately funded university education, as well as personal generosity, Juan is a member of his alma mater's alumni association and gives as generously as he is able to financially support his university.

Juan is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world. It's also a bit more expensive than it needs to be because it has features required by law he might not have wanted in the first place had he been asked. This, again, is because some meddling liberal fought for unreasonable car safety standards. As he drives out to his father's he remembers his great-grandfather's car that didn't even have seat belts because in those days, seat belts were optional; and his great-grandfather didn't think he needed them. Juan admits that he himself would have purchased them, but wonders what it would be like to live in a country where an adult is free to make such decisions for himself. What a country that would be.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the fourth generation to live in the house financed by three previous generations of capital accumulation--no inheritance taxes. The house didn't have electricity until Juan's dad was almost out of high school. It's true that some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification, which, naturally, cost the liberal nothing. The electric company ran the wires out there, but lost a lot of money because there were few customers: Juan's family and their neighbors didn't have shit that ran on electricity in the first @#$%ing place, and had no immediate plans to buy such things. But you can't expect your average, city-dwelling, big-government liberal to know shit about country living.

Juan is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father, who lives on a farm, remember, lives on the money his still-productive farm generates for the family. Yep. His dad and mom handled their money well, making sure, as well as they could, that they could take care of themselves so Juan wouldn't have to. Not that Juan would mind: he loves his parents. (He knows there are liberals who think he shouldn't have to take care of his parents, but he doesn't care what they think. These are not their parents!) And it's a good thing his parents were smart with their money, too: Social Security don't pay squat. Who the @#$% can live off it? Certainly not Juan's parents.

Juan gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The liberal radio host keeps saying that liberals are good and conservatives are bad. (Libertarians are probably worse than bad.) He doesn't mention that the benevolence bestowed by liberals like himself cost them nothing or, at most, a pittance. He doesn't understand why conservatives aren't grateful.

Juan muses aloud: "First they take our money, then return a fraction of it in the form of things we didn't ask them for. Then they demand our gratitude and call us hypocrites for living the life they have forced upon us. What the hell are we supposed to do? Rip out the seat belts? They have made it illegal not to use them. For this, we are to be grateful? Cabrones."

P. S. -- Joe Republican, who in Juan's opinion is almost as much a statist as any liberal, can speak for himself.

*********************************************************************

"The Life of Joe Republican"
by Hector Cruz

[Or; "How a Liberal Does Ad Hominem, Specious and Tendentious all in Seven Hundred Words or Less"]



Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union.If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe also forgets that his in addition to his federally subsidized student loans, he attended a state funded university.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the tax-payer funded roads.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans.The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."

Michael Daly thinks Rush Limbaugh and others bear some (if not all) responsibility for Michael Enright's attack on cab driver, Ahmed Sharif. Never mind that Enright has a history of bizarre, drunken behavior, for which Limbaugh and others cannot be responsible. Last year, he was arrested in an apartment building while ranting about dead Marines. Residents hid in their apartments as Enright marched up and down the hall for a half hour. Who's responsible for that, the cast and crew of "A Beautiful Mind"? We do not know. But we do know that Michael Enright, the guy who did the marching and ranting, is not responsible for it.

"As Limbaugh and...other...panderers...shamelessly sowed," Daly writes, "so did Ahmed Sharif undeservedly reap." Oh, brother.

Sharif, we are to believe, was attacked because Limbaugh and other svengali types made appeals to base desires. Begging the question which has everyone arguing (i.e, whether there is anything objectionable about a mosque at or near Ground Zero), Daly arbitrarily asserts, without any explanation of the causal relation between Limbaugh's supposed pandering and Enright's attack, that he "fanned...bigotry and hate...at one point saying it was like building a Japanese temple at the battleship Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor."

So far, I have not found that Enright was even listening to Limbaugh and Gingrich when they both compared the building of the mosque to that of a Japanese temple. If Limbaugh's pandering, as evidenced by his analogy, is responsible for the attack on Sharif, one should expect that Enright heard it. Not only so, but Limbaugh has millions of listeners who have heard this violence-motivating pandering but for which the attack would not have occured. Thus far, only one attack, on a single cabbie, not millions of attacks.

To get around the probability that Enright wasn't responding to anything he heard Limbaugh or Gingrich say, Daly asserts that Limbaugh and Gingrich are responsible by creating a "climate", which climate itself, not Enright, is somehow the cause of Enright's attack on the cabbie. In the same way, no doubt, that one cannot help being cold in a cold climate -- and responding accordingly -- one cannot help hating in a hate climate -- and responding accordingly, like Enright.

But the only way one can avoid the ridiculous charge of "climate creation" is simply to voice no opposition to something like the building of a mosque near Ground Zero. That's the left for you: the only way not to be responsible for this or that is to keep your mouth shut about things they do not oppose.

It doesn't bother Daly that despite having millions of listeners all over the country, there were not millions of attacks all over the country -- only one. He deftly deals with Limbaugh's pandering analogy: "One difference is that Japan really attacked Pearl Harbor. The World Trade Center was attacked by a handful of fanatics who need us to do exactly what the panderers are doing." (Yeah. That's it. The fanatics didn't really want to kill any of us. They just wanted us to get really angry with each other. Thousands died, not so much because the terrorists wanted to kill anyone, but because they wanted us to get pissed off at each other. All we have to do, I guess, is not get angry with each other and the fanatics will give up.)

Brilliant, but only so long as one ignores, as Daly does, that the handful of fanatics were fanatical about Islam and thought, as is too well known, they were doing their God's will. (Allah akbar, and stuff.) All Daly really demonstrates is that what Limbaugh should have said is something to the effect that building an Islamic community center (or mosque) at or near Ground Zero, which many Muslims round the world admit would be something on the order of an arch of triumph, would be like building a Japanese cultural center at the battleship Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor, which cultural center, arguably, has as one of its purposes the celebration and honor of the Emperor of the Empire of Japan, in whose name, and for whose sake, the attack was perpetrated, and was being funded by Japanese who remain sympathetic to the Japanese Imperial cause. Or something like that.

See the problem? It takes too many words. Daly and people like him can do stupid in fifty words or less. Smart takes a bit more. Limbaugh hosts a live call-in show, not a live philosophy journal. (And it might interest Daly to know that even in philosophy journals, people smarter than Rush Limbaugh employ faulty analogies. I have never seen it happen that one philosopher accuses another of any act more heinous than logically fallacious reasoning. Good thing Daly doesn't read philosophy journals: whole lot of crime in those pages!)

Of course, what Daly would like us to believe is that Limbaugh didn't just happen to employ a faulty analogy. If he's truly responsible (I mean, you know, if Daly isn't just, well, pandering) then he did so knowingly, consciously, and with malice aforethought and with the express intention of so fanning bigorty and hate (blah, blah, blah) that it would create the necessary climate and some harm would result. Furthermore, he did so hoping that, in fact, someone out there in radio land, hearing his svengali broadcast, or being influenced by his climate, would in fact perpetrate just this sort of violent act. Wait, there's even more: If Rush Limbaugh did not intend this, then he is still culpable, for he should have known his svengali message would have this effect, and behaved accordingly. So he's guilty of not knowing something he should have known.

Given how smart Daly must believe Limbaugh to be, I imagine that the only thing that bothers Daly more than the fact that Limbaugh is (must surely be!) smarter, is the fact that Limbaugh is richer. (Daly mentions Limbaugh's money two or three times in his article.) But I digress.

So, it's about a mosque at Ground Zero. To Rush and others, there is something objectionable about a mosque at Ground Zero. To Daly there isn't, which naturally makes him morally superior to those with whom he disagrees. Morally superior enough to know there can be no truly principled objection to a mosque at Ground Zero. In order honestly to have a problem, Daly has to hold that Limbaugh and his fellow panderers really know and agree with him that there is no principled objection to a mosque at or near Ground Zero. Otherwise, the charge of pandering fails.

Take the simple proposition, "The building of a mosque at Ground Zero is objectionable." It is a categorical affirmative proposition, taking the form "For all P, P is Q" or, "For all building of mosques at Ground Zero, the building of mosques at Ground Zero is objectionable." As a proposition, it has a truth value: it is either true or false that "For all building of mosques at Ground Zero, the building of mosques at Ground Zero is objectionable." The difficulty is that this is not a question of empirical fact. The proposition is not subject to empirical verification. Its truth value depends upon the grounds which render objectionable the building of a mosque at Ground Zero, grounds which also are not capable of empirical verification. But that particular question does not concern me here.

What concerns me presently is how holding the proposition either true or false makes one responsible for the actions of another, simply because one has used a faulty analogy in arguing the case. If Rush Limbaugh and others believe it to be true that "For all building of mosques at Ground Zero, the building of mosques at Ground Zero is objectionable" how do they become responsible for the attack on a Muslim cab driver? Why is not the attacker, and only the attacker, responsible?

According to Daly, they are responsible because they complained, loudly, and employed an analogy which, to him, isn't just inapt, but inciteful -- climate-creating, in fact. Very well and good. Daly tells us they are responsible but he doesn't tell us the way in which they are responsible.

And he really should do, because there are many ways of being responsible for something.

(1) One can be role-responsible, in the sense that one holds a position or office in an organization to which specific duties are attached to provide for the welfare of others and is responsible for the performance of these duties. A ship's captain is responsible for the performance of those duties which attach to his position; and in that role he may be held responsible for, among other things, the lives of his crew and any passengers. Should any harm come to them as a consequence of some failure of his assiduously to perform these duties he is responsible for that harm although, techinically speaking, he himself did not cause the harm. If Daly conceives of Limbaugh and others as role-responsible, then he must believe they have, by virtue of their positions, or offices, some specific duties they are obligated to perform and which they failed to perform. And the failure to perform these duties resulted in harm to Ahmed Sharif. I suppose he could assert that at least one of these duties was the duty not to pander, which pandering is what caused the harm. But his only evidence for this putative pandering, at least in Limbaugh's case, is the "Japanese temple" analogy. If so, that's pretty lame. (2) One can be causally responsible, the way a drought is causally responsible for a famine. But if we consider causal-responsibility in thinking of the harm to Sharif, then the one who is causally responsible is Enright, not Limbaugh. I think about the only way Daly could hold Limbaugh causally responsible is if he argued that Enright was Limbaugh's agent. To be a reasonable claim, it would entail that Limbaugh personally selected both the target (Sharif) and the agent (Enright). I don't see Daly pulling that one off. Besides, that isn't the way causal-responsibility is discussed. (3) One can be liability-responsible, having some obligation -- legal or moral -- to act or refrain from acting, and becoming responsible when failing to meet the obligation. Moreover, one can be held (vicariously) responsible for the actions of one's servant, or employee, even if he gave no order or permission, or even had no knowledge of what his servant was doing. But the master-servant, or employer-employee, relation is a formal one. Such a relation did not exist between Limbaugh and Sharif. We would also have to inquire about Limbaugh's state of mind at the time of his pandering. Daly needs to believe that Limbaugh had, or should have had, some certainty that someone, somewhere would assault a Muslim just because he (Limbaugh) has some objection to the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero and offered a faulty analogy involving a Japanese temple. (4) One can be capacity-responsible, but the issue there isn't about what someone has done, or failed to do. The question with regard to capacity-responsibility is whether one has the mental capacity to be held responsible. The assertion that one is capacity-responsible is intended to defeat a claim, among others, that one is not guilty of wrong-doing by reason of some diminished capacity (e.g., an insanity defense). There is no question of Limbaugh's sanity. (If so, then those who find fault with him should shut up, since he can quite obviously use the diminished capacity defense. Just saying.)

Ulitmately, Daly's problem comes to this: He doesn't like Rush Limbaugh, because Rush (who, by the way, made less than half of Beyonce's $80 million, according to Daly's own Daily) is rich:

Rush Limbaugh sure lived up to his name. He was in such a rush to leave the city he helps make more dangerous that he left the furniture when he unloaded his apartment.

Limbaugh pocketed $6 million profit on his Fifth Ave. penthouse even as he was fanning the bigotry and hate aroused by the so-called Ground Zero mosque.

So, maybe Limbaugh could spare a few dollars to help out the Muslim cabbie who fell victim to the kind of attack that was sure to come in such a climate.

There's your hate. It is not hate to have, and voice, an opinion at variance with the left, despite the left's insistence that it is. It is not even hate to argue a contrary position and employ a faulty analogy, despite Daly's insistence that it is.

But it is hate to take a difference of opinion, call it hate, connect it with a tragedy, and assert that the tragedy occured because of this so-called hate. That's the left: telling us who they really are, by what they call their opposition.

Note: I'm still waiting to see whether Daly accuses Al Gore of being responsible for James Jay Lee holding all those people hostage at the Discovery Channel. After all, he said he was inspired by Al Gore.

These people -- it's never satisfactory for them just to warn parents, and (HORRORS!) let parents decide whether to buy their children Happy Meals which include toys. Of course, they have warned parents; but parents (darn them!) insist on buying Happy Meals for their children. Since the parents won't stop buying, the only alternative is to make McDonald's stop selling the offending product, the product, that is, which offends the Center for Science in the Public Interest, not the parents.

It used to be that parents warned kids to run away from strangers offering candy, but companies have made an end run by laundering their perfidy through electronic media. Now kids absorb countless commercials touting premiums based on their favorite characters -- Shrek, Batman, Barbie, Beanie Babies, etc. -- and, surprise, surprise, ask their parents to take them to McDonald's. Consumer-marketing guru Adam Hanft said, "Happy Meals proved that you could actually 'brand' a meal and make children harass their parents for it."

The Federal Trade Commission has reported that fast-food companies--with McDonald's by far in the lead--spent $360 million in 2006 on toys to market children's meals. In the same year, fast food restaurants sold more than 1.2 billion children's meals with toys to children ages 12 and under, accounting for 20 percent of all child traffic at those restaurants. It should be no surprise that companies employ the practice--it works.

As one reads the article, one gets the impression that, for Jacobson and his ilk, the only market players involved are restaurants like McDonald's and children, where the children are the consumuers. The parents? Oh, those are the people who are "pestered" by the children into talking them to McDonald's and are, apparently, impotent in resisting this pestering. Some of us -- neanderthals, no doubt -- would say this marketing to children via toys works because -- and only because -- parents allow it to work. Jacobson knows better. It's McDonald's; and they've got to be stopped.

Granted "kids absorb countless commercials...and...ask their parents to take them to McDonald's" and that children can be motivated to harass their parents for a product. But the question remains: Who is in charge here? As Bill Cosby might say, "These are not your children!" (I can't tell you what my mother would tell Michael Jacobson.)

I recall the last time I attempted to pester my parents into something. I was about seven years old. Not only did I not get what I wanted, but my pestering was so aggressive I got something I most certainly did not want (but was told I asked for) -- and I got a lot of it!

The children may "pester" and "harass" but Mommy and Daddy are the push-overs who drive the little whiners to McDonald's. Mommy and Daddy are the ones who spend their hard-earned dollars on Crappy Meals. Why doesn't the Center for Science in the Public Interest sue the damn parents? I'll tell you why: McDonald's has more money.

Scumbags.

Razing the Servile State VII

The churches and other religious institutions pronounce on many matters of politics; but monetary phenomena, such as paper money, central banks, dollarization, currency boards, and so on, are hardly mentioned at all. ~ Jörge Guido Hülsmann, The Ethics of Money Production.

Some months ago, His Beatitude was on the Tonight Show (when Jay Leno was still there). During His glorious appearance he told us all that if college students would prefer jobs as engineers and physicians and such to jobs on Wall Street, then we would no longer have a boom-bust cycle. He did not explain how not having people working on Wall Street would do away with the boom-bust cycle. Neither did he explain how the boom-bust cycle is caused solely (apparently) by having people working on Wall Street (but not in the Eccles Building). Heck, like Mary Poppins, he never explains anything. And frankly, I don't think he has the slightest clue what cause the business cycle.

Presently, he wants to limit the size to which a financial institution can grow. The argument is that having institutions "too big to fail" is one of the contributors to the present economic malaise, the other one being the fact that there is anyone working on Wall Street in the first place. Key to this plan is placing limitations on the amount of risk such institutions can take on. We know that risk can make an economy grow. Apparently, it can also crash an economy. The key must be the amount of risk. But you would think that the growth of an economy would be some proportion to the amount of risk being taken. The larger the risk the greater the economic growth. Apparently, however, there is this point at which the risk is just too much and will bring the economy to its knees. (Now, if he thought for a moment how entrepreneurs determine risk, he'd be on his way to understanding something about the business cycle.) We have not been told how risk is divided into growth-causing and crash-causing. We've been told these practices led to the recession, but we've not had it explained how.

Why should he bother to do? The huddled masses, looking to him to supply all their needs by His riches in glory, don't need to know how Wall Street causes the boom-bust cycle. Neither do they need to know how having more people entering the engineering and medical professions does away with the cycle. They need only know two things: 1) Obama has said he will do away with the cycle; 2) He has said we must seek jobs in places other than Wall Street. What else do we need to know? Ostensibly, like him, less than nothing about economics.

Of course, giving us an explanation would mean including government's own role in the boom-bust cycle. And when you're wanting to persuade people that government can solve the boom-bust riddle, the last thing you want to do is acknowledge (if you even know) that the government has any role in the cycle, especially if that role is same whether the administration is Republican or Democrat, or Congress is controlled by Republicans or Democrats. In short, the proper explanation would have to include the Federal Reserve.

Now, why would His Beatitude not want to mention the Fed's role? Perhaps it is that the Fed, despite its role in the boom-bust cycle, still plays a useful role: it allows for government expansion without increases in taxes. Central banking in general, The Federal Reserve in particular, is the key to the size and scope of (un)federal power, the servile state. To understand this, is to understand so much of how our benevolent government reduces us to servility. To begin to understand this, however, we have to understand some basics of money and banking.

How money comes into existence

Money, despite the claims of what might be called the received view, is not a creation of government. It is created by private citizens negotiating among themselves what they desire as acceptable commodities of exchange. The life story of money always begin in barter, the direct exchange of one good or service for another. A farmer who grows potatoes trades a certain number of potatoes to the blacksmith for blacksmithing services, another number of potatoes to a farmer who grows grains, who in turn trades grain for whiskey from a distiller. This assumes, of course, that each one involved in the exchange has more of the good than he himself needs. Also, this will ultimately become inefficient when no one has anything to trade, or to trade for. This results in indirect exchange with some single commodity becoming the medium of this type of exchange. In prisons, the medium of exchange is the cigarette. (I don't know this from personal experience, of course; but I've heard.) Even inmates who do not smoke will accept cigarettes in exchange because there is always someone, at some point in the exchange process, who smokes and will be happy to have a cigarette. Moreover, those prisoners who smoke may be induced to reduce their smoking because to smoke means literally to burn money. Different cultures have had different media of exchange. Some cultures have used items such as bird feathers, beads, and even tea leaves as media of indirect exchange. For most, however, some precious metal such as silver or gold eventually becomes the medium of exchange. Mostly, this is because metals are, in comparison with most other commodities, relatively imperishable. Moreoever, men discovered that silver, by virtue of being more abundant than gold, was useful for small exchanges, whereas gold was useful for larger transactions.

Money is a social institution, not a state institution. Perhaps one of the most famous of coined money is the dollar. And it was coined by a private citizen, not a government bureaucrat, named Hieronymus Schlick. What we now call the dollar was called Joachimstaler, from Joachimstal, the valley where the silver for these coins was mined. Joachimstaler was shortened to "taler", becoming "daler" in Danish, Swedish and Norwegian. In English it became "dollar". As a "dollar" it was a unit of weight, a "dollar" being equal to .05 of an ounce. Twenty dollars equaled one ounce. To pay a certain number of "dollars" for something was to pay a certain weight in silver for it. One of the reasons the "dollar" came to be so widely used was Schilck's reputation for a coin reliable for its weight and fineness. In fact, as a private citizen, he had to guarantee these things, unlike governments, which simply command that their debased coins and worthless paper be accepted at face value.

How governments insert themselves into the process

Of course, there's no good thing that a government can't screw up. Money is no exception. Government intrusion begins with the power to tax. This is bad enough. Eventually, however, governments want to do more than tax revenues will pay for. The power to tax is also the power to inspire revolution, as people grow weary of watching their money disappear from their hands. And when it does not inspire revolution it kills economies, because people tend to hide their gold and silver as a means of protecting it from government seizures. Any tax is a tax on economic activity. If you don't want to be taxed, simply engage in no such activity, or as little as possible. Above all, put no money at risk; make no investments.

There is a way of getting money from the people without their realizing it -- until it's too late anyway. When gold and silver are collected as taxes, the government can shave, or clip, pieces from the the coins. The shavings or clippings can be melted down and fashioned into new coins, coins which, not being debased, do have their face value, and with which the government can pay its debts, those things governments enjoy to do -- for their pals -- for which there is not enough in tax revenues. Those shaved or clipped coins, however, have been devalued by virtue of not weighing what they say they weigh. The coin may say $1 on it, but recall that a dollar is a unit of weight, being equal to .05 of an ounce. Once some bit of it has been shaved or clipped off, it no longer weighs .05 of an ounce. A merchant who sells an item for $1 expects to receive .05 of an ounce. Noting that the coin has been shaved, perhaps several times, he may weigh it and find that it weighs .0475 of an ounce, or 95 cents, despite the fact that it says "One Dollar" right there on the coin. Needing to pay his own debts, he will raise his price by 5 cents (or .0025 of an ounce), because $1.05 in "new" (i.e., debased) dollars is the equivalent of $1.00 in old, undefiled dollars. You see what has happened here? Government has robbed the people, not by taxing them, but by debasing their money. For each "dollar" they possess, they have lost a nickle. Government has also generated price increases as its subjects try to make up the loss of a nickle on each dollar they possess.

It's worse with paper money. At least with coin you can see the debasement. You can weigh the coin to see if it is what it claims to be: a "dollar" weighs a dollar, .05 of an ounce. When it debases coin, the government is still dealing with a relatively fixed number of coins. There is some limitation to the amount of debasement a government can get away with. In order for the government to mint truly new coin, it must employ newly mined precious metals. This is not the case with paper money. Printing new paper money requires only newly produced paper and ink, and a press. That is the point of paper money. The government no longer needs to clip or shave coins. It claims the right to control the currency, including the amount of currency to be in the market, declares pieces of paper to be the only acceptable legal tender, and then simply prints up more paper as it requires. And if you don't know how much paper is circulating today, compared with tomorrow, then you have no idea what is the value of the paper in your pocket. With coin, you can see the debasement, but not with paper. Paper hides it until it is too late. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The Private Origins of Paper Money

But even paper money doesn't begin its life as a production of government. Paper money begins its life as a bank note, a private bank note. Banks issued these notes on the basis of the real money (i.e., gold and, or, silver) which they had on hand, in reserve. These bank notes, because they represented and were backed by real money, were treated as real money. Note, they were only treated as real money. It is important to bear in mind that the issuance of bank notes always assumes that each and every such note can and will be redeemed in specie; that is, each bank note, when presented to the issuing bank will get the bearer of such note the face value of the note in gold or silver. Present the bank with a one-dollar bank note; get .05 of an ounce of gold coin in return. On one hand this doesn't sound very reliable. You mean, one is supposed simply to trust a bank to keep its word? However personally ethical a banker may be, or may not be, the thing that will keep him honest is the need to keep his customers happy. The other thing that will keep him honest is suffering the consequences for malfeasance in issuing bank notes. Let's say a banker gets into his head to issue more notes than he has gold or silver in reserve. It's a risky venture. He has to have some reason for believing that at no time will all his note-holders come wanting to redeem their notes for specie. If the notes are issued as loans, then he hopes to make back more in interest than will be withdrawn in specie, just to keep explanations simple. Of course, if his customers (or the wrong customers) learn of this practice they will cease to do business with him, withdrawing their specie deposits. Here he must suffer the consequences as each gold or silver depositor removes his gold or silver out of the vaults of such an unscrupulous man. This is a real bank run, real because the object is real money, not paper.

But even if no one finds out that the banker is loaning more in paper than he has in specie deposits, the paper is still floating about the economy. As the amount of paper increases (inflation) so will prices, because price is always a proportion of the total money supply (or, the assumed money supply).

Government-dictated legal tender, fiat money

Inevitably, it seems, people come to accept the notion of the necessity of government control and guarantee of the currency. Perhaps the best argument in favor is precisely the inflationary practice I outlined above. Another practice, to round out the picture, is fractional-reserve banking. Of the total deposits, a banker keeps only a fraction in his vault, lending out the rest, as high as 90%, keeping only 10% on hand (reserve) to redeem his depositors' claims. (A bank run occurs when a significant number of his depositors come to claim their deposits and close their accounts. A critical number of bank runs can cause a panic. Banks practicing fractional reserve banking are all just one run away from failure.)

Thanks to the paper inflating and credit expanding behavior of banks (i.e., private, but not market-driven control of the money supply), government control of the money supply just seems a necessity. It isn't, but it seems that way. It isn't necessary because a simple government fix is for government to out-law fractional reserve banking, and other inflationary practices, such as credit expansion. A better, private fix, is for consumers not to do business with banks which practice fractional reserve banking and credit expansion, in favor of those who practice full-reserve banking and engage in no credit expanding practices whatsoever.

However, after a few bank runs and panics, the word "private" is frightening. After all, to be fair, the banks which caused the difficulties were controlling the money supply privately. So, government control it is. But governments, as I said above, usually want to do things for which sufficient funds cannot be raised via taxes. So, even if government control of the money supply is initially responsible, backing the paper totally with redeemable specie, it eventually departs from this sound practice, especially during times of war. The colonies did it during the Revolution, issuing unbacked "Continentals". The Union and the Confederacy both did it during the War for Southern Independence. Some sort of crisis, real, imagined, or fabricated, is usually used as grounds for departure from gold or silver standards. And when these departures are made, these worthless, unbacked pieces of paper are declared "legal tender" and become fiat money; the public are informed that they shall not be permitted to redeem these pieces of paper for specie. Thus, and here is where the servility comes in, the people, who freely created money in the first place, first in direct exchange and subsequently in indirect exchange, using real commodities in both cases, are now commanded what commodities (i.e. paper and ink) to value and by how much. (This measure is needed in order to save the "free" market.) Where they were formerly free to value and exchange whatsoever commodities their respective, and free, markets would accept, they are now commanded by their governments to treat pieces of paper as if they had the same value as silver or gold.

We may stipulate a role for government, but the power to command people what to value in exchange is a power (one of many) we should question.

Razing the Servile State VI

Whenever I deny in conversation that we have collective duties (as I did here), I'm usually told, "Now, surely you agree that some things, like the education of our children, are so important as to be publicly funded." In fact, I don't. As I've said, we have no children; society has no children. The state has no children to educate. I have children; you have children. Your children are yours to educate, and my children are mine to educate. The fact that we are encouraged to think "we" have children to educate leads me to believe that something other than education is the agenda. It is this other agenda that turns me off to the idea of public education.

Language differences notwithstanding, public education can no doubt work if limited to reading, writing, and arithmetic. We can even add elementary principles of geometry, the natural sciences, and the principles of our system of government (maybe!). The difficulties appear when we go farther than these. Teaching turns into indoctrination because it is not feasible to represent to children (including adolescents) all the aspects of a problem and to let them choose between dissenting views. (It isn't feasible because of the number of dissenting views on contentious issues. Trying to cover them all, even if one wanted to try, adds to the time it takes to get an education, and, for that reason, the cost. It also is not feasible because those whose children are being educated in all of these dissenting views, will either not want their children to receive instruction in all these dissenting views or not be satisfied that all views are receiving equal allotments of time.) Moreover, it is not very easy to find teachers who can teach views with which they disagree in a way which would satisfy those who hold such views. When it comes to these contentious matters, the party operating the schools is in a position to promulgate its views and to disparage all others. In many, if not most cases this usually results in lawsuits, as, for example when parents don't want their children to read the Bible -- even as literature -- or about Heather's two mommies or Mike's two dads, or when parents don't believe any theory but some form of Darwinism counts as "scientific" and sue schools to keep out the teaching of creationism or intelligent design.

If all education were private, there would be none of these difficulties. And yet, we are still encouraged to believe in the superiority of public education. This wouldn't be so bad if private schools (and home schoolers) were left alone, and the public schools required to demonstrate their superiority by creating a better "product". If private schools and home schoolers were left alone, it would be difficult to attribute ulterior motives to public educators. But there are some places where private schools and home schoolers are subject to severe burdens, burdens so heavy as to lead one to believe that the purpose is to drive them out of operation. Some of the methods are well disguised, I must say. For example, H.J. Res. 29, introduced 3 March 2009, proposes an amendment to the Constitution which provides that all persons shall enjoy the right to a public education and that Congress shall have the right to enforce this provision through "appropriate" legislation. That seems innocuous, even generous, until you realize that (unless we're talking about university education) everyone who wants a public education can already have one; or, we should say, everyone who wants a public education for his child can have one. One must wonder, therefore, what can be the purpose of such a constitutional amendment? Why, to keep parents from violating their children's rights to a public education! Let us note that the amendment does not seek to protect rights either to a private education or to a home education, but rather a public one.

This is nothing new, really. In the introduction to his Christianity and Liberalism, Gresham Machen mentioned a law in the state of Nebraska which forbade instruction by means other than English, as well as the teaching of any language other than English (12). "The minds of the people of Nebraska...are to be kept by the power of the state in a permanent condition of arrested development." He also mentioned a 1922 Oregon law requiring all children in the state to attend public schools, thus wiping out of existence all private schools in the state. At the same time in history, a New York state law provided that, "No person, firm, corporation or society shall conduct, maintain or operate any school, institute, class or course of instruction in any subjects whatever without making application for and being granted a license from the university of the state of New York to so conduct, maintain or operate such institute, school, class or course" (13, n. 2).

All of these state and federal actions assume that the state has some interest in your child's education. But to say that the state has a vested interest in your child's education is just to say that your neighbors have this interest. How is this? How can your neighbors assert a right to peer into, and exercise any control over, the education of your children, without the assertion, on some level, of ownership of your children? In a certain sense, it's not really as bad as all that. I daresay the vast majority of your neighbors don't really care, as long as your children aren't causing trouble. But in an important sense, it really is as bad as all that because it's really a matter of some of your neighbors, as private citizens, thinking they, as private citizens, have a vested interest in your child. And the state is simply the means they employ of managing this interest. These are people who, in contrast with people like me, don't believe you and I have children: they believe you and I have their children. Oh, they may do a lot of talk about "our" children, but they mean theirs; they just don't want us to know it. If you stop listening to them and pay attention to the laws they want passed, or the laws they succeed in having passed; if you pay attention to what they do when they have their children eight hours per day -- by their deeds you should know them. And their children are theirs to educate. They believe the state has, as someone recently explained to me (with a straight face), a "vested interest" in our children.

A "vested" interest in anything, much less our children? I was unable to ask this person if he even knows what it means to have a "vested" interest, but it can have one of two possible meanings (neither of which were specified for me in this brief conversation). In the legal sense, to have a vested interest means that one has a right, even title, to a thing, and, along with it, the right to dispose of the thing (sell, transfer). The important element is the element of interest: I'm not sure people who use the phrase "vested interest" really know precisely what it means. Interest is a general term, employed to denote a right, claim, title, or legal share in something. When used in reference to lands or real things, the term is used in connection with other terms such as 'estate,' 'right,' or 'title.' More importantly, for my purposes here, it means a right to have the advantage accruing from something, or someone. We're talking about a property right. How does the state (really only just some of your neighbors) come to have a right, claim, title, or legal share in your children? (The aforementioned person told me that it's just a matter of settled law, as if that is an explanation. Slavery used to be a matter of settled law, too. Abortion presently is a matter of settled law. So, I don't think talk of "settled" law really, well, settles anything.)

In a non-legal sense (e.g., in communications theory) it means that the education of children has consequences such that the state is affected. Since the state is the means by which some control others, what this really means is that some of your neighbors think that your child's education so affects them as to give them a say in it. They have an interest in the out-come of your child's education, so they get a say in it. It escapes notice that, since everything we do really affects just about everyone else (or has the potential to do) this argument is actually one which justifies totalitarianism.

Now, whether these people use "vested interest" in the legal sense or the non-legal, the notion should make us a bit uncomfortable. Either the state has an ownership claim upon our children, which is to say that some of our neighbors have this claim; or the state (i.e., some of our neighbors) has an interest in the outcome of our children's education. Whichever it is, we should ask how this interest came to be. We might ask, with regard to the legal sense, who has done this "vesting". I think we'll be told "we" did. And because "we" have done, our children are basically theirs and they will decide what their children are to learn, when, and how.

The point of public education is, and always has been, the control by some of the education of all. And this notion of a "vested interest", the mutual ownership of each other implied in use of the terms "we", "our" and "us", is another one of the dogmas of our own servile state. And when our ancestors first bought into the idea that education was such a good as to be provided at "public" expense, they laid the first cobble stone for the road to universal health care; for if education is that great and important a good, then health care is much more such a good. The same justifications are used for both.

So, the answer is, no, I don't think education is such a good as to be provided at public expense. The state does not have a vested interest, legal or otherwise, in our -- not their -- children's educations. And believing it does only empowers the servile state further.

That's how Garrison Keillor feels about those of us who think the present healthcare reform schemes are not the best course of action:

[O]ne starts to wonder if the country wouldn’t be better off without them and if Republicans should be cut out of the health-care system entirely and simply provided with aspirin and hand sanitizer. Thirty-two percent of the population identifies with the Republicans, and if we cut off health care to them, we could probably pay off the deficit in short order.

Garrison Keillor: healthcare nazi.

If I just had had enough time, this is what I would have written on the subject. Beautiful.

There is a trajectory of socialism, regardless of the good intentions of many socialists.... [Y]ou take things such as health care, things that are traditionally understood as within the ambit of individual liberty and free choice; you move such things into the ambit of state responsibility as the welfare state emerges and grows, on the theory that it is government’s responsibility to provide for everyone’s needs (by redistributing resources); as more things are moved from private to public control, the state by definition becomes totalitarian; and, inexorably, the totalitarian state gets bad leaders and the society comes to reflect the policy choices of those leaders.

Now, we can argue until the end of time about whether that trajectory really exists and whether it is inevitable. But however you come out, it is an argument very much worth having. It goes to what kind of society we are going to be, to what the proper relationship between the citizen and the state is.

Nazi Germany is a useful historical example of socialism run amok. The genocide and terrorism ultimately practiced by the Nazis were horrible — that goes without saying. But National Socialism went on for a dozen years, it was the last stage in a progressive nationalization of German society, and there was a lot more to it than genocide and terrorism. It cannot be that because there was genocide and terrorism, the socialist aspects of National Socialism are outside the lines of acceptable political discourse. Given the immense popularity of Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism, one of the most important political books of the last quarter-century, it doesn’t look like Americans are as convinced as Mort Kondracke seems to be that these comparisons are verboten.

[...]

National Socialism is banned from the Right’s case against socialism, but is somehow acceptable when leftists use it as a smear or when the Left’s nuanced geniuses, after their very thoughtful consideration, decide its invocation is suitable for mature audiences? I don’t think so.

Darn right it's not verboten.

And how I wish they would.


My wife and I had a slight, and friendly, disagreement over breakfast this morning about the revelations of Mark Sanford's mysterious disappearance over the weekend. Her position generally agreed with what seems to be the majority report on the issue: that the governor's absence would have been a grave liability in the event of some crisis, blah, blah, blah. I mean even the State Law Enforcement Division (responsible for his security) and his own staff couldn't reach him via mobile phone and text messages between Thursday and Tuesday. Why, one caller to the Limbaugh Show claimed that Sanford's absence left his state "in the lurch."

Heard somewhere in the state of South Carolina: Oh, my goodness. The governor's gone! What if there's a hurricane? What if the sky falls? What if the earth's temperature keeps rising?

Whatever.

My position is that no one (certainly no POLITICIAN!!!) can, or even should be so important that his mysterious absence would mean total disaster. An entire state in the lurch? Just because the governor is out of state, and out of touch with his staff? What are we saying here? That when the governor is away it's like a parent leaving the house for the weekend and the children unattended? Help! Social Services! (They're never around when you need them.)

Please. No one, certainly no politician, should be that important. And the fact that some are so should be a sign of something bad. An AWOL governor should be as frightening as missing a hole in one's head. Without condoning adultery, anyone should be able to just disappear for a bit if he wants to. Especially a politician. I wish more of them would.

Hey, whiners, listen up: If you don't need your parents anymore then you don't need your governor, either. And if you do need your governor, then you probably still need your parents, too. Grow up and start finding things more important to worry about than a missing politician.

My wife, incidentally, now agrees with me on this. Which she should. Because I'm right.

Now if I can just get her to surrender her position on the War on Drugs.

(Razing the Servile State II)

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. ~ Declaration of Independence, emphasis added.

[I]t has always happened that tyrants, in order to strengthen their power, have made every effort to train their people not only in obedience and servility toward themselves, but also in adoration. ~ LaBoetie, The Politics of Obedience, Part II.

Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.... Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities.... ~ Romans 13.1, 5


Paradoxically, one of the dogmas underlying our own United Servile States of America, is that the state is owed virtually unquestioned obedience, and to some extent, even a modicum of adoration, by its subjects. I say paradoxically for two reasons. First, because these states owe their existence to the fact that the founders dared to question and then reject the obedience they owed the British Crown. Second, because some of the most state-adoring people in this country are conservative Christians, who rely upon texts like Romans 13 to urge this virtually unquestioning obedience, in contrast with some of their forebears who, in fact, urged rebellion on the grounds that government must obey the laws and when it does not it is no longer owed obedience. (During the period during which revolution was simmering, a "patriot" was one who favored liberty in the form of secession -- yes, secession -- from Great Britiain, as opposed to loyalists.) In the circles in which I move, I daresay most Christians, who look upon the Revolution favorably, would look upon a rebellion against the government in Washington, even an unarmed one, as a sin. I could be wrong. (But I'm not.)

Because I am a Christian, I must deal with this underlying dogma first because in expressing some antipathy for (servile!) statism I may seem to run afoul of specific Biblical passages such as the above-quoted from Romans 13. Especially is this the case when one considers the phenomenon of "Christian Patriotism", which, like men, women, teenagers, soldiers, college students, environmentalists, etc, etc, etc, even has it's very own niche Bible. How can I desire the razing of the (servile) state in the face of such passages? Moreoever, how could I possibly favor razing a state which my own faith played some part in founding. It comes to two things. First, nothing about a requirement to obey a governing authority implies that the governing authority is not in certain respects usurpatious. Second, this is no longer the state which Christianity played a role in founding. I'm not going to spend any time, here, arguing the second point. I shall devote attention to the first.

In questioning the authority of the state (by arguing that it should not have much of the authority it exercises) I am violating Paul's command. I am, in fact, going against God because Paul says that the state, as an authority, has been established by God. What the state, established by God, commands, I must obey. The voice of the state must be held to be the voice of God. In fact, however, unlike Rothbardian libertarians, I do not rebel against the state per se. I rebel against the state's usurpations. It is the state, not I, that is wrong.

Let's look first at what Paul says about the role of the state, or the "governing authorities". These authorities hold no terror for those who do right. One could argue that my antipathy to the state must indicate that I am one of those who do wrong. If I were keen to do right, I would not be bothered by the state. But I am bothered by the state; and I think I am justifed in being bothered. Paul does not say that the state first decides what is right and then punishes those who act contrary. He says the state simply punishes wrong-doers. The state is not the final word on what is right. The state, properly, is the enforcer of a law it has not created of itself, a law which pre-exists the state.

The situation in which we find ourselves is one in which the state acknowledges no law not posited by itself. The state shall first decide what is right and then punish those who do wrong. We live under the domination of a state which is the final word on what is "right" -- a divine state. We live under the domination of a state which forces us to live not by laws but by opinions. One can know this is true, by considering the fact that during the recent campaign season, the President asserted that, while government cannot and should not do everything for you, it should do for you what you cannot do for yourself. (He has not been alone in making that claim, of course. I mention it because it is recent history.) Perhaps it is a true proposition that government ought to do for people what they cannot do for themselves. Frankly, I see no way to justify belief in its truth. That is an opinion. It is his opinion. And if one listens closely, one notes that we are never told why government must do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We are told this, hear this and obey this. (Well, some of us anyway. Others of us question.) So we are to be ruled by opinion, dogma really. Wrong-doers are those whose opinions are at variance with those of the state and act accordingly, in other words, heretics.

With respect, then, to the matter of usurpations, the question is not whether (and by whom) the state is empowered to do for some what they cannot do for themselves, but rather, from a Christian perspective, whether God empowers and authorizes, for a pertinent example, the governing authorities (Party A) to seize and employ the resources of one (Party B), not, as St. Paul says, to punish wrong-doers, but in order to do for another (Party C) what Party C cannot do for himself. If the state is not thus empowered, then it usurps this power and is, therefore, illegitimate.

So, I agree with Paul that the governing authorities have been established by God. That is not the question. The question is whether the governing authorities are authorized by their Establisher to do as they will, or to do as they were established to do. The question is whether the governing authorities still recognize themselves as having been established to punish wrong-doers, or whether they prefer to substitute their own notions of wrong-doing and punish in accordance with those notions, whether they prefer not so much to punish wrong-doers but to do for others what those others cannot do for themselves, and confiscating whatever properties needed, not to support their work of punishing wrong-doers but to do those things they prefer to do. And all this without the consent of those whose property is confiscated for these purposes.

Of course, those to whom Paul wrote also lived under the dominion of such a state. The governing authorities to which St. Paul enjoins obedience were also usurping powers not legitimately theirs. And yet, he says, "Obey them." Uncritical reading and recitation of this passage and others might lead us to continue a habit of submission to illegitimate authority. (Not very unlike some Christians who accepted the Nazi state on the grounds that "governing authorities" are established by God.) This is why it is important to take careful note of two very, very important facts. First, at the very moment in time at which Paul was urging obedience to the "governing authorities" he was proclaiming a message which would eventually turn that state on its very head. Second, on occasion St. Paul insisted on the prerogatives of his Roman citizenship. Roman citizenship was not something just everyone had back then. When the governing authority violated his rights as a Roman citizen, he asserted those rights, insisted upon them, in fact.

Like Paul, we have a citizenship which gives us rights against our own governing authorities. Not only that, ours is a citizenship in a country whose legal background (Anglo-Saxon law) includes the right of the governed not only to consent to being governed, but also the little known right of rebellion. So, in the same way St. Paul could appeal to Ceasar, which many of his readers could not, we can, even as Christians, legitimately insist upon our rights, including, should the need arise, the right of rebellion (as a consequence of the right of the governed to consent to their governments).

Speaking of Rome, it is interesting to pause and note that Rome, the capital city of an empire, was a republic before it degenerated into an empire. As a republic, it also was established in an act of rebellion against the Etruscan kings. So we have the ironical fact of a republic birthed in act of rebellion degenerating into an empire with a government rebellion against which was considered an act of treason. The Romans who founded the republic, claimed a right for themselves which they turned round and denied to others by expanding Rome's imperium through warfare. To be sure, beginning with Juilus Caesar, there was a pattern of granting Roman citizenship to provincials (i.e., wiping out the distinction between conquerors and conquered), but this was only to make the conquered easier to rule. Becoming a citizen of Rome did not come with a right to consent to the rule of Rome. In truth, granting citizenship to the conquered was nothing more than making their subjugation complete. But I digress.

While I affirm the right of rebellion under Anglo-Saxon law tradition, as well as another tradition going back to Juan de Mariana, of regicide, I think we (i.e., Christians) should prefer another route. Bearing in mind, as I said, above, that while Paul enjoined obedience to usurpatious, Roman governing authorities, he proclaimed a message which undermined the very state those authorities served. The best approach, it seems to me, is to agitate -- not call, not request, not even beg -- for surrender of illegitimately exercised powers.

Others, of course, would assert another approach. Christians, they would argue, should seek to hold public office, and hold those offices as ministers of God, as Paul calls governing authorities. In those offices, then, they should devolve these illegitimately exercised powers back to the states where they belong. Chief among these are, I think, Christian Reconstructionists or Dominionists, with whom I disagree.

I suppose, since the topic has come up, I should explain why. I'll have to do so another time.

To sum up my position, nothing about the requirement to give obedience to the governing authorities, means we are therefore prevented in insisting upon our rights under the laws of the nation in which we live. We can raze the servile state and at the same time acknowledge the excerise of legitimate powers. Razing the servile state is best done by attacking the dogmas upon which it rests, not the people in its employ. In other words, razing the servile state by attacking its underlying dogmas requires use of our first amendment rights, not our second amendment rights.

Part III

There are two elements of the Carrie Prejean matter that I found fascinating, from an ethical perspective. First, because she said she believed, on biblical grounds, that marriage should be between a man and a woman, she has received attention because of some photos taken while modeling. It is fascinating because her position is based on an explicit prohibition in Scripture. She is vilified, on the other hand, in the absence -- arguably -- of an explicit prohibition. (There is some debate about what the Bible's requirements for modesty really entail, not so much about the prohibition of same sex relations.) In other words, the Scripture explicitly states that a man shall not lie with another man as he might do with a woman, which, at the very least, is a prohibition of homosexual pair-bonding, or, at most, a prohibition of any and all sexual encounters between members of the same sex. Her position is based upon that explicit prohibition.

It is amusing to note that the controversy about the photos proceeds upon the notion that, in saying that she believes, on biblical grounds, that marriage is to be between a man and a woman, she was also saying that she, Carrie Prejean is a paragon of Christian virtue, or, as they put it at TMZ, "biblically correct." This is the behavior of people who have no arguments for their positions, as if gay marriage really is okay because someone who says it isn't is, arguably, guilty of some moral turpitude in some area of his life. In other words, if you're not morally perfect then you have no business making any assertions regarding moral issues, even if you are asked. Given this, I wonder if Perez Hilton perfectly obeys traffic laws. If he doesn't I wonder if he would assert that stealing is wrong. I mean, if perfect obedience is the qualification for making assertions about correct behavior then I hope, if he has any beliefs about correct behavior -- and we know he does (for example: don't say you disagree with same-sex marriage) -- that he perfectly obeys the law. Otherwise, he wouldn't have much of a leg to stand on if he were ever robbed.

For all that, however, there may be something to their ire. Look at the reasoning she employs in defending the photos:

"I am a Christian, and I am a model.... Models pose for pictures, including lingerie and swimwear photos." ~ Here.

There you have it. Her appearing in the photos is justified by her job description. The job description of a model includes posing for lingerie and swimwear photos. I am a model. Therefore I pose for lingerie and swimwear photos. (Models also pose for topless and nude photos, but never mind that just now.)

It's ethical because in my profession it's an accepted practice. Carrie Prejean is not the only Christian who reasons through ethical issues in this slip-shod, fast food fashion. I suspect many of her critics are angry with her not just because of her stance on same-sex marriage but because of her elementary school level justifications for the photos. They probably think a job description is not the place to go to answer questions about whether certain elements of your work are ethical.

Look at it from their perspective. When it comes to the ethics of same-sex marriage, she relies upon the Bible. Fine. But then when it comes to the ethics of certain photos for which she posed, she relies upon her job description. Gee, I wonder why they're upset.

I suspect her critics also, speaking of the Bible to which she alluded in her reply, understand that the Bible calls Christians to eschew sensuality. And I think they understand all too well the amount of sensuality involved in beauty pageants, lingerie and swim-wear.

Self-examination and ethical thinking is hard for some Christians. They've been fighting the culture war for so long that, while they are well practiced at comparing the culture to the Scriptures, they don't have much experience comparing themselves to it with the same microscopic attention to detail. And if we slow down and really think it through, perhaps we can see that, while not entirely correct, Carrie Prejean's critics do have something of a case against her. Yes, she is a bit of a hypocrite; but that's not all. When confronted with questionable photos she shrugs her shoulders and says, "I never claimed to be perfect".

Great. She's not perfect. But she still gets to do her job. Gays still don't get to marry. She seems, to her critics anyway, to be more bothered by the imperfections of gays -- and gay marriage -- than by her own imperfections. I'm sure they believe that she can spell out, with great eloquence, the harms to society created by gays and their marriages, but not as eloquently on the harms to society of her own, surely less important imperfections. No, she doesn't want to redefine marriage. But, one could argue, her profession, among others, has been in the business of redefining several other things (like modesty) for the last several decades.

Not that I really care, but I am glad she gets to keep her crown.

The government and unions have got themselves some car companies, but no one has to buy those cars. But there's no guarantee it will be a profitable venture, like Amtrak. This ownership isn't going to work very well if Americans decide, in one of those great paradoxes that adds sweetness to life, that buying American, when it comes to some automobiles, may be, well, un-American.

Not to worry. A government subsidy here, a tax increase on "foreign" and imports there, a promise to make your car payment for you for nine months if you lose your job and it just might work. In other words: artificially decrease the cost (and, thus, the price) of the union-owned product, and artificially increase the cost (and, thus, the price) of the private-owned product. Why, I bet the taxes on your purchase of a GM or Chrysler product will be just about zero, but not the taxes on your foreign auto (say, for example, a Volkswagen Group product, like your Lamborghini, Bentley; or your Porsche, whatever). The taxes on those products will likely increase. But that might start a trade war.

(Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four)

At the end of this posting I raised the matter of educational philosophy. I don't want to take up the subject at length, but it occurs to me, as I continue to reflect upon evangelicalism's coming collapse, that before a Christian can do educational philosophy he needs to have done his philosophy. And I think that's a large part of evangelicalism's problem: too many of them haven't really done their evangelical philosophy. That is, many of the Christians who do philosophy take up questions being worked on by non-Christians, not entirely out of line, one could say, but perhaps not the best use of limited time and resources. Alvin Plantinga noted over two decades ago that philosophy is a social enterprise; and this fact has implications:

Christian philosophers...are the philosophers of the Christian community; and it is part of their task as Christian philosophers to serve the Christian community. But the Christian community has its own questions, its own concerns, its own topics for investigation, its own agenda and its own research program. Christian philosophers ought not merely take their inspiration from what's going on at Princeton or Berkeley or Harvard, attractive and scintillating as that may be; for perhaps those questions and topics are not the ones, or not the only ones, they should be thinking about as the philosophers of the Christian community. There are other philosophical topics the Christian community must work at, and other topics the Christian community must work at philosophically. And obviously, Christian philosophers are the ones who must do the philosophical work involved. If they devote their best efforts to the topics fashionable to the non-Christian philosophical world, they will neglect a crucial and central part of their task as Christian philosophers. What is needed here is more independence, more autonomy with respect to the projects and concerns of the non-theistic philosophical world.

Plantinga extended his remarks to all Christian scholars.

One might say evangelicalism has been poorly served by its scholars, who seem by and large to have been concerned to stake out claims in topics of interest to Princeton or Berkeley or Harvard. That is, after all, how one earns respectability. Perhaps. But neither has evangelicalism been very willing to be served by her scholars. Reducing the Christian life in the world, for the most part, to evangelism, evangelicals have asked their scholars, in varying ways, "How can you be so frivolous and selfish as to think about anything but the salvation of human souls? How can you be so wasteful of your time as to think of anything but evangelism and missions?" So, as Spencer observes, evangelical educational institutions have done little but staff their own needs. I know this: I have been the recipient of this attitude. Invariably, in talking to some evangelicals about my university studies as an undergraduate, I was asked how I, as a Christian, could justly study philosophy. One person, but only one, flat out told me there was no way I could be a Christian if I was studying philosophy. Hadn't I read Colossians 2.8? (In fact I had, which is why I felt comfortable studying philosophy and telling this gentleman he, not I, was the one who did not understand St. Paul.) For a time I was involved in the Christian Education at an evangelical church. Time out of mind I was chastised by parents for attempting to turn their children into philosophers, rather than Christians. (On a proper conception of philosophy, there isn't a difference.)

Incidentally, in those times I found encouragement in a passage from C.S. Lewis's, 22 October 1939 sermon, "Learning in Wartime":

If all the world were Christian, it might not matter if all the world were uneducated. But, as it is, a cultural life will exist outside the Church whether it exists inside or not. To be ignorant and simple now -- not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground -- would be to throw down our weapons, and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defence but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered. The cool intellect must work not only against cool intellect on the other side, but against the muddy heathen mysticisms which deny intellect altogether. Most of all, perhaps, we need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age. ~ In The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses

It is important to note, given that my topic has been Christian education, that Lewis preached that sermon to answer the question, "When the world is advancing to heaven or hell, when liberties hang in the balance, how can students and faculty spend time on what seem to be trivialities in comparison?"

In the previous posting, I asked, "What is the student when he finishes the course of instruction at a Christian school -- other than qualified to go on to college or get a good job, be a good citizen of the U.S.?" Presently, I think the question is being answered better by the Orthodox, than by evangelicals. I think we should say that the student will be a knower of God when he completes the curriculum at his Christian educational institution. Does this mean that I think Christian schools should teach only Bible, theology, and so forth? Not at all. That would be to focus only on that form of God's revelation theologians call Special Revelation. There is also God's General Revelation -- his creation. As a revelation of God, the creation is also a means of union and communion with God. This is why Gentiles do instinctively the things contained in the law, why St. Paul could affirm that all men know God (even though they refuse to acknowledge and glorify him as God [Romans 1.18ff]).

The relation between Christian education and the coming anti-Christian spirit Spencer writes of is not forced. In this posting I asked what makes an education Christian other than the fact that it goes on in Christian schools, is provided by Christian teachers to Christian students (or the children of Christian parents) and includes chapel services once a week and a handful of Bible, theology, or Christian worldview classes. Someone who was opposed to "Christian" education could be made quite happy if a school would simply do away with its chapel services and its Bible, theology and Christian worldview classes. So when one thinks of this anti-Christian spirit one has to wonder: What is it that will make the object of this opposition Christian? It's one thing for Spencer to write of "intolerance of Christianity", but it is important to know whether the "Christianity" for which there will be this intolerance is characterized by careful devotion to Christ or by careful devotion to other things (such as "reclaiming" America for Christ). I suppose there are some who might argue that careful devotion to Christ has to mean, on some level, claiming (or reclaiming) America for Christ. In a sense that is true, if by "claiming" we mean something synonymous with evangelizing, which, by the way, is what I would mean. But, what with the "Dominionist" scare and all, I think people can be forgiven if they understand "claiming America for Christ" to mean getting legitimate control of the apparatus of the state and using that apparatus for Christian purposes (whatever "Christian" means, in that context) -- in other words Christian statism. (And I don't care if the personification of this Christian statism is Jim Wallis or Jim Dobson.)

If the intolerance of Christianity is, in fact, an intolerance of Christian statism (and I don't mean only Dominionist or Reconstruction varieties) I find myself being all for it, frankly. For me, Christian statism seems to have the same vision of an unfederal central government, promoting a utopian vision of "unity" over "disunity", engaging in just as much centralized control over public education as the current crowd, imposing its morality (however much I happen to agree with it) with same verve and gusto as liberals have done for decades. We'll probably be just as over-taxed to pay for the Christian state as we are to pay for the secular state. In other words, the Christian statism seems to me to be different from the secular statism in that it is Christian statism rather than secular statism. (But remember my question: What makes Christian education Christian?) Let me put it this way: I've always been bothered by the fact that the Roman Empire continued to be an empire after the Christians took it over. An empire is still an empire; and I don't like empires, no matter how benevolent. So if intolerance of Christianity is really, as I presently suspect, intolerance of Christian statism, then all we have here is one group of statists not tolerating another, rival, group of statists. Help me, Jack Bauer!

Of course, Christianity as careful devotion to Christ can be just as intolerable to statists as the other variety of Christianity. In the end, a statist is one who, as I mentioned here, worships man through the state. The Christian whose Christianity is careful devotion to Christ is perhaps even more intolerable to a statist (especially, perhaps, the secular statist) than the Christian whose Christianity is marked by careful devotion to "reclaiming" America for Christ. Statists cannot permit much in the way of loyalty to something higher than the state, so there is that possibility.

But I just don't think that our devotion to Christ is what's causing the problem right now. Yes, Jesus did say that those who hate him will hate his followers. But it is logically fallacious to believe that everyone who hates us does so because of him. When you see sad stuff like this (and we know that's just a sampling), in addition to acknowledging that evangelicalism seems to have difficulty giving its adherents resources to fight indwelling sin, you have to think, "It could be us." St. Peter said: "Let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evil-doer, or as a busybody in other people's matters. Yet, if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter" (1 Peter 4.13). It is possible for Christians to suffer persecution for reasons other than devotion to Christ. When evangelicals appear to care more about whether unbelieving Heather has two unbelieving mommies than about whether believing Juan Alberto Ovalle is trying to hook up with underage girls, one has to understand how devotion to Christ seems to be a bit lower on the order of business than it should be. It would be well for evangelicals to take that to heart.

I suspect, however, that when the difficult times Spencer discusses come, the vast majority of evangelicals will take comfort that the rapture is upon us. So persecution prone are they that they will take comfort in the fact that "so persecuted they the prophets" (Matthew 5.12), and so forth. (Some of the comments here bear this out, I think.) Their disdain for the spiritual disciplines as well as the charismatic thirst for spiritual gifts like tongues, prophecies, miracles, healings, pre-occupation with eschatology, etc, have left most of them (it appears to me) without the tools or the patience, for the introspection, the self-examination, the soul-searching necessary to revive themselves. Indeed, most seem likely to blow all that off as wasteful navel-gazing, or, worse, legalism.

I also suspect that those of us who would suggest that the coming suffering may not be, or may not entirely be, suffering for simply being a Christian, will be treated like those who suggested that perhaps some elements of U.S. foreign policy played a role in the 911 attacks. (I was not one of those, for whatever that's worth.)