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Podcast: Lots of Updates (and the new FAQ)

Norman — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 14:00:30 +0000

In this podcast, I talk about recent happenings around LCC including the new FAQ section, and I answer a few of the recent questions submitted for the FAQ in detail.

Right click here to download the entire mp3 audio file.

For those with podcast software, there is a special Podcast RSS Feed set up just for you.

If you are using iTunes, click on the following button to subscribe directly:

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Podcast: Lots of Updates (and the new FAQ)

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Tags: Blog News, christian libertarian, theology

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New FAQ Questions Added

Norman — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 22:40:00 +0000

Since the opening of the new Christian Libertarian FAQ last week, I have already received a number of interesting questions. Here are the latest inquiries from readers, and since some of them did not leave an email address (naughty, naughty!) it seems more than appropriate to post them directly on the blog as well:

Q1: When Paul wrote Romans 13, the government was distasteful to our 21 century sensibilities for sure. Yet Paul commands believers to honor the rulers, even calling them "servants of God." Coupled with Peter’s instructions to honor them, pray for them, etc., this shows that God has a role for government. Is it possible to determine if Paul personally prefers a small or large government? If God has a purpose for government should Christians be advocating it’s disappearing?

A: The problem with saying that Romans 13 proves there is "a role for government" is that it is conflating government being within God’s plan with government being sanctioned and declared inherently moral by God. When one considers the numerous negative references to the State in the Bible, such as Matthew 4, 1 Samuel 7, Genesis 11, and the book of Revelation, one cannot but admit that the State is, at core, rooted in rebellion against God. So while it is impossible to speak directly for Paul, it seems to me that the State itself is the problem and not merely the size. In conclusions, a Christian can admit that the State is not outside of God’s plan, and yet still advocate for it’s abolition as the greatest oppressor of the innocent in history.

Q2: What in the Bible suggests that followers of Jesus should subscribe to the ideas of libertarianism?

It would be incorrect to say outright "God/Jesus is a libertarian," but what I find very compelling in Scripture is that Christian ethics and libertarian ethics end up being very similar. Other instances: (1) The Golden Rule in Matthew 7:12 is very similar to the non-aggression principle. (2) Scripture is consistently skeptical toward power concentrated into the hands of rulers (cf. 1 Samuel 7). (3) The "Kingdom of God" is never characterized with the aggression of the State. Can you think of any more?

But besides Scripture, libertarianism has more or less emerged from the Western tradition, which is tied very strongly to historical Christianity. It’s ideological predecessor, classical liberalism, was primarily promoted by Christians in its infancy. So, we have an interesting historical argument as well supporting libertarianism from a Christian perspective.

Q3. What in the Bible suggests that followers of Jesus should not subscribe to the ideas of statism?

Besides all the positive reasons that support libertarianism, one of the greatest rejoinders to statism I know of is Matthew 20:25-28, where Jesus says: "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant… just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

Q4. Where does LibertarianChristians.com make a distinction between resistance to unjust Government action and the directive to "submit himself to the governing authorities"? (Romans 13, NIV)

The position of LibertarianChristians.com is that Romans 13 is about prudence in action toward governmental intrusion in life. While civil disobedience is not immoral and certainly is great to do in certain cases, one must be very careful in executing such measures. For instance, my first responsibility is the caretaking of my family, and then serving the church. I will not do things that bring unreasonable risk upon them. Frequently enough there are better ways of making a difference. But most of all, LibertarianChristians.com does not and will never advocate violence as the answer to our problems.

Would you like to add anything to these answers? Comment below. Or if you like, ask your own question today!

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New FAQ Questions Added

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Tags: Blog News, christian libertarian, Christianity, government, history, libertarian christian, libertarianism, Romans 13, romans13, statism, The State, theology

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Announcing the Christian Libertarian FAQ

Norman — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 21:22:44 +0000

There are a lot of changes happening on the tech-side of LCC right now. Some are small (things you’ll never see), some are medium (like moving the Contact Page under the About Page), and some are large. Two big changes have rolled out today. This morning I announced the implementation of Disqus for comment management, and now I’d like to announce another new feature: the Christian Libertarian FAQ.

As you probably know already, FAQ is short for Frequently Asked Questions, and I intend to make this FAQ an easy way for any reader who may stumble across LCC to inquire about libertarianism or about Christianity as it relates to libertarianism. I started it off with a few questions, namely a basic question about the non-aggression principle and three questions spawning from the recent post about marriage and homosexuality. You can note that it is located in the navigation bar just below the header image, labeled FAQ just as you’d expect. Hover over it and you’ll see a little drop down menu where you can Ask a Question.

So how exactly do you ask a question? It’s really easy: just go to the Ask a Question page and fill out the amazingly simple form. All you need to do is write a question and provide your email address. When you submit, you will receive an email confirming your question was received, and when your question is answered you will receive another email with the response. Of course, I reserve the right to edit questions reasonably for clarity or to reject an inappropriate question.

But since this is the first announcement of the FAQ, I’ll include the submission form below. Tell your inquisitive friends, and ask away!

Question:
Email:	¹

1 - Notification of when your question has been answered. (Optional)

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Announcing the Christian Libertarian FAQ

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Disqus Comment Management is Live

Norman — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 18:05:50 +0000

I have officially switched LCC’s comment management over to Disqus. This is a big step, and it kind of makes me nervous. With any luck, it will be a positive step toward even more engagement through comments.

Previously, in order to leave a comment you needed to “register” on LCC and I needed to moderate your first comment. After one successfully moderated comment, you could comment anywhere just by logging in, no moderation needed.

The change to Disqus makes it a lot easier to comment in general. You can login using Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, or a Disqus account (which I highly recommend since it is becoming a very useful service). From there, you can leave a comment and have the option of posting to Twitter or Facebook about the post. I hope you’ll utilize this feature, since it will help spread the word about what’s going on at LCC on a regular basis.

If you already have a Disqus account, be sure to claim any comments you’ve already made by clicking on your name in a comment and going through a few easy steps. The plugin will search for any comments associated with your email address and apply them to your Disqus profile.

Disqus also has the interesting feature of “liking” comments as well, kind of like Digg or Reddit. “Likes” are applied to the commenter’s profile and are pretty fun to use.

The comment CSS styling within posts is a bit off of the native styling, which is a bit annoying but I’ll fix it over the next week or two. For now, I’m just glad the system works fine and the comment migration worked without a problem.

So, all ye stupendous thinkers and readers, comment away! Let nothing stop you! Make some noise!!!

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Disqus Comment Management is Live

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LCC Quietly Hits 1000 Comments

Norman — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:31:00 +0000

Another milestone for LCC has gently come and gone… Congratulations to Daniel Hewitt, Lee Shelton, and Markham for breaking the 1000 comment mark, submitting comments #1000-1002, respectively, on the Gay Rights, Marriage, and Government Intervention post.

LCC has gone from just a few readers in late 2008 to over 400 now (depending on how Feedburner feels at the given moment), and the interactivity has definitely picked up as we have grown. I love hearing your comments, questions, feedback, and especially disagreements. “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” Your contribution to this site means a lot – to everyone. Let’s keep building this community!

In honor of this auspicious occasion, I will be making a transition to the Disqus comment management system in the next week. Disqus will make it even easier to submit, share, and manage comments, and hopefully it will encourage even more participation from all of us!

(And for any WordPress users out there… Akismet has blocked over 7500 spam comments. Crazy! Gotta love Akismet…)

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LCC Quietly Hits 1000 Comments

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Podcast: Current Status of LCC

Norman — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 03:00:48 +0000

There are so many great things going on here at LCC that I decided to do a short podcast rather than write it all out. Take 8 minutes and listen:

Great discussions taking place in the comments
New articles that are coming out soon
Tech tutorials
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT about an upcoming series of uber-awesome PODCASTS!!!

Thanks for all your support, folks, I very much appreciate it…

Right click here to download the entire audio file. [8 minutes, mp3]

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Podcast: Current Status of LCC

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On Transportation Pollution: My first peer-reviewed publication

Norman — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 19:04:25 +0000

In the world of academia, one of the things you regularly try to do is publish your research in peer-reviewed journals. Peer-reviewing is the process of having your work evaluated by experts in a field. The process has its benefits and drawbacks, but overall it has worked well for quite a while.

Libertarians can have a difficult time publishing because our work often goes against the deeply held beliefs of academics, many of whom advocate for more government intervention and are completely against the free market. Although some journals truly are dedicated to libertarian scholarship, such as the newly established Libertarian Papers, getting libertarian ideas into mainstream academia is not the easiest thing in the world.

Nevertheless, we do have a lot to add to the academic arena, for example the area of pollution. A little over a year ago I wrote a paper about transportation pollution, and I presented it at the Austrian Scholars Conference in 2008. Under the advisement of Walter Block, I began submitting the paper to journals for publication. This morning I received word from the editor of Ethics, Place, & Environment that my article, Can the Government Solve Transportation Pollution?, has been accepted for publication in their next issue! This is very exciting for me, as it is my first publication ever in a peer-reviewed journal.

I’ll summarize the paper briefly for you. First off, here’s the abstract:

Most people presume that government is always responsible for providing solutions to pollution problems, including transportation pollution. This paper examines the validity of this argument from a minarchist libertarian, property rights principles perspective, and concludes that government cannot solve these problems using command-and-control legislation. The primary policy suggested for government to adopt is the strict adherence to property rights protection and enforcement regarding polluters, including themselves. Further encouragement of market forces could be accomplished by stopping interference within the market at critical points, namely the production of roads, production and sales of automobiles, and the subsidization of alternative fuels.

The thesis of the paper is that the free market is a much better preventer of pollution than the government, and in fact that government actually exacerbates pollution problems through regulation and lack of adequate property rights protection:

Experts disagree on whether or not global climate change will actually be detrimental to the world as a whole over time, but let us presume for a moment that the “inconvenient truth” of Al Gore really is happening and that humans really are in danger from excess carbon emissions. Can government intervention actually make a difference? Why is it so commonly accepted that the free market cannot handle pollution? Are there any relevant examples in the past that we can examine? This paper demonstrates from a libertarian perspective that the free market can and will handle pollution when property rights are justly enforced, and that the free market will do so better than government ever could.

I outline the arguments for the free market as opposed to command-and-control socialistic regulations, and show how governments are actually much worse polluters than private industry. The rest of the paper is spent advocating various free market solutions to pollution problems – and basically the message is get the government out.

Here’s a list of some of the measures I mention, some of which you already saw in the abstract:

Politicians need to stop acting like the only thing standing between civilized life and total destruction is government intervention (not a “free market” solution per se, but necessary).
Restore property rights protection regarding pollution. If you dump waste and hurt someone, you’re 100% liable.
Allow for private road systems, and road owners are responsible for the pollution coming off the roads.
Remove layers of government control on new vehicle production
Eliminate taxes and tariffs on new vehicles, in particular those with high gas mileage ratings
Eliminate taxes on existing vehicle repairs and upgrades
Provide tax deductions for efficiency improvements on existing vehicles
Quit penalizing entrepreneurs trying to figure out other solutions (like stopping vegetable oil vehicle drivers from being fined for breaking regulations)
Quit subsidizing alternative fuels, especially bio-ethanol

I will try to receive permission to host the article on this website after the issue is released, but it depends on what I am permitted to do with it (copyright law, blech).

So all in all, a victory for the cause of liberty today in my book!

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On Transportation Pollution: My first peer-reviewed publication

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Tags: ASC 2009, Blog News, law, pollution

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Becoming a Blogger

Norman — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 22:14:27 +0000

Libertarian Christians need to pay special attention to blogs in the coming years. Blogging is an essential part of new media. More than ever Americans are refusing to trust the “traditional” media outlets and are turning to other forms of reliable information, and blogs are the key links in the chain. For libertarian Christians, this is a great opportunity to spread our ideas all around the world – if we would only take a little time to learn about the tools available to us. In many ways, the Internet is dominated by liberty-leaning individuals, so leveraging this resource to this noble cause should be a top priority for us.

It’s very simple to get started blogging, but to be successful requires significant effort. Gideon Shalwick and Yaro Starak have put together an excellent program, simply called Become a Blogger, that can send anyone on the right path towards successful blogging. Their 70-page Roadmap Report is definitely worth perusing if you’ve ever thought about blogging before.

Many people resort to blogging with a service such as Blogger or LiveJournal simply because they do not know how to start their own website. Well, Gideon and Yaro have put together a free 10-video series on building your own website from scratch, including purchasing a domain name, obtaining hosting services, and installing WordPress.

Watching these videos will give you a feel for the rest of the premium course. The B.A.B. program is primarily video-based (and also includes a closed forum) and progresses through a series of 9 modules over six months (every month you will get at least 7 or 8 videos):

Get Your Blog Up And Running Fast And FREE
How To Optimize Your Blog For Maximum Search Engine Performance
How To Use Images On Your Blog To Make You Stand Out From The Crowd
How To Create A Different Dimension To Your Blog By Adding Audio
How To Breathe Life Into Your Blog Using Online Video
How To Create Powerful Content For Your Blog, Consistently and Without Fail
How To Create Multiple Streams of High Quality Traffic To Your Blog
How To Use The “X-Factor” Strategies To Put Your Blog Into Super Drive!
How To Make Money From Your Blog

I highly recommend the Become a Blogger Program for aspiring bloggers, even if you have been blogging for a while, because it will help to give you an idea of where you ultimately want to go with your blog. I started my first blog way back in 2001, and I have learned a massive amount from the program.

I know that much of this information can be found for free in various places online, but you will inevitably spend a TON of time searching out these sources. Considering that our time is a scarce resource, I consider it a great investment to have purchased this program. It got me moving from just thinking about blogging to finally moving forward in constructing LibertarianChristians.com.

Finally, the reason I’m saying all this is that they are about to close their doors to new recruits on February 6, 2009. So if blogging has sounded interesting to you but you didn’t know where to start – I’d recommend you check this out soon. Still unsure? No worries, you have a 60-day money-back guarantee if you don’t like it or decide it isn’t for you. But I’m telling you, if you’re serious about blogging you will not regret joining up with Become a Blogger.

So take a look, but don’t forget you only have until February 6th.

10 Easy To Follow Videos Showing You How To Create Your Blog From Scratch!

FREE: Discover The Time Tested And Proven Roadmap To Blogging Success…

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Becoming a Blogger

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The theme has been Flexx’d

Norman — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:11:53 +0000

Thanks to the hard work of Dustin and myself, we have successfully researched, purchased, customized, and launched the new theme for this blog.

We hope you enjoy the new Flexx theme for LCC, which comes from iThemes. Personally, I think it looks amazing and as we keep tweaking it will only get better. But what do you think? Do you like the new look? Is there anything you’d like to see? Comment below, please, and give us some feedback.

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The theme has been Flexx’d

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Exciting LCC Changes

Norman — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:29:46 +0000

Over the weekend, I successfully made the transition to WordPress 2.7 and FeedBurner Google. All RSS feeds should automatically update, but you might want to check and see if your feed is working properly. The new feed address is http://feeds2.feedburner.com/libertarianchristians. Those of you on email subscriptions should know whether your subscription is working by whether or not you are still receiving emails. Hopefully all is well and everything is intact!

The next move for us will be the installation of a new theme and layout. My brother and I have been furiously working on it over the last few days and we are very close to being ready. I think you will agree when you see it that it looks FANTASTIC!

Graduate classes have started up again for me, so posting may be slightly less frequent. However, I have a number of great articles in store over the next few weeks, including a post on abortion and two pillar articles that define much of what we are about as Christians and libertarians. Stay tuned for those very soon!

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Exciting LCC Changes

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