Last week I mentioned that I would be defending my PhD Thesis in Chemical Engineering. Well, I passed! The DOCTOR is IN!

Have you joined the Christian libertarian Facebook Group yet? There has been a lot of interesting discussion going on in this group, and you are welcome to join in. Just this week alone we added nearly 100 members, totaling to over 400! It’s a great time to be a Christian libertarian, so please add yourself to this great group of people (and “Like” the LCC page while you’re at it).

Onward to the real news…

Joe Carter at the Acton Institute PowerBlog writes about Gleaner Technology, borrowing the principle of “gleaning” from scripture (see Deut. 24:19) to describe basic technologies that can help the poor in unique ways. It’s a bit of a stretch, but I appreciate this idea nonetheless. His first example: solar bottle lights.

Wired published some neat articles on science in the past week. There has been some significant controversy surrounding a find in a lab in Italy where neutrinos were traveling faster than the speed of light (this would have been a monumental discovery). But, turns out it could be just a faulty cable. Wired also wrote about a rare book fair where some original copies of the greatest works of science written hundreds of years ago were displayed and sold. It is really neat to observe how humanity has progressed in this arena.

In other random science news, Slate reports that shale oil has been a major boon to the production of petroleum products. It’s nice to see this immensely innovative process recognized. Of course, it also disparages “peak oil” alarmists (the new Malthusians, I think). People forget that basic economics explains so much of what goes on in these types of industries sometimes, you know, supply and demand changes tend to incentivize new, unanticipated means to production?

James Madison came up in two interesting articles this past week. First, Ray Nothstine at Acton writes about Madison and religious conscience. I would add that Madison is right, but it is because of the principle of self-ownership. Second, Tom Woods reviews Kevin Gutzman’s latest book on Madison at LewRockwell.com – it’s a great article that you should definitely check out.

Did you know that the Feds raided the Gibson Guitar Company’s factory in Tennessee TWICE in the past 3 years for an obscure violation of the Lacey act? What is more, they still have not been charged with a crime! I suppose I am particularly infuriated because I am a guitarist, but this is pretty outrageous. ReasonTV made the following video to report on their plight. It is nice to see Rand Paul come to their defense in the Senate.

Rand Paul also blocked an egregious synthetic drug ban in the Senate. This is a good move by Rand, for sure.

Did you visit LCC this week? Here’s what you missed if not:

• The Law is Written on Our Hearts by Isaac Morehouse
• The Problem with Public Education by Laurence Vance

Have some relevant news and links you want to share? Post in the comments below. I read every comment and respond to almost all of them. Let me know what you’re thinking!

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

News of the Week: The Great Gibson Guitar Raid

In a recent blog post, EthicsDaily.com editor and Executive Director of Baptist Center for Ethics Robert Parham claimed that churches and charities could never do enough to alleviate poverty.  I agree.

Poverty will never be “tackled” because it is a relative term; a moving target. If you could describe the plight of America’s poor today to a poor person in another country, or an American 100 years ago, they would conclude that poverty had been eliminated. The standard of living among the poorest Americans today is incredible by world and historical standards. Yet we still wage the war on poverty, even in America. This is not a bad thing – helping the down and out can be wonderful and is something Christians are called to. But when we aim at targets like the “end” of poverty, there is no end to what we can justify in order to reach this impossible goal. “The poor will always be with you.” The question for Christians is how best to reach them, spiritually and materially.

The second reason I agree with Parham’s claim is that, to the extent that poverty can be reduced, the church and private charity alone are simply too small to do it. The incredible gains in social and material welfare of the poor in America have not primarily resulted from charity, churches or governments. They have resulted from (mostly) free-market economies.

If we look at poverty in a vacuum as Parham does and ask how private charity compares to government efforts, we could conclude that private efforts are too small. But if we look at government and private efforts combined compared to the power of the market, they would be dwarfed so as to make them hardly important in the big scheme. Charity is a targeted and short-term salve for the wounded; its value is far more in its spiritual nourishment than any material progress it brings. A vibrant free-market is the only institution powerful enough to bring about the kind of dramatic increases in standard of living that most of us wish to see.

Public Choice

Jumping from the premise that private charity is not enough to the conclusion that government must do something places a blind, sometimes idolatrous faith in government that counters logic and experience. The incentive structure in government departments is to perpetuate and grow regardless of their effectiveness or the need for their services. There is no check on whether or not they are effective. In fact, the less effective a bureau of poverty relief is, the more they are rewarded with bigger budgets. If poverty is on the rise, and they will always claim it is so as to increase their importance, the last thing to do is cut the department of poverty relief!

Government programs are also subject to “capture” by interest groups and politicians. Scratch the surface of any government program and you will find that it is not the “general welfare” being promoted, but the welfare of a very small and politically connected group at the expense of the general welfare.

To examine private efforts and claim they cannot tackle a problem is only half the analysis needed. We must also examine government efforts and ask if they can tackle the same problem before we charge them to do it. The field of Public Choice Economics does just this, and you would be hard-pressed to find a case where the market is not providing something and getting government involved makes it better. If Christians have a duty to help the poor, they also have a duty to use their brains to discover ways that actually work. Intentions and actions are not enough, we need to understand how to be effective. This requires some knowledge of economic and political systems.

Wrong about Rights

The most damning and least supported claim in Parham’s article was that it is wrong for a Christian to value other people’s property rights:

“[L]ibertarian morality values property rights over human rights. For a Christian, that’s bad moral theology.”

I beg to differ. What Parham leaves unexplained is how human rights are to exist absent property rights. Private property is not some sacred dogma for its own sake; it is important because there is no other method of peacefully settling competing demands for limited resources. Such resources include food, water, shelter and other necessities of life. Common definitions or human rights include the right to be free from hunger. How can you have this right if you have no right to the very food you need to survive?

If Parham means by human rights the right to food, shelter, health care and other positive rights, this poses an incurable conundrum. Positive rights are a logical and practical impossibility. They cannot coexist with negative rights, or even with other positive rights.

A positive right is a right to something. A negative right is a right from something. A positive right obligates another person to take action. A negative right prohibits another person from taking action. A right to life, liberty or property is a negative right. You are free to live and act and justly acquire property, and no one can prohibit that so long as you are not violating their rights. A right to health care is a positive right. If you have the right to receive health care, someone else has an obligation to give it to you. If I am a doctor and you say you need my services, I am obligated to assist you in a world of positive rights. But what if at the same time I am hungry and need to eat rather than assist you in order to maintain good health? Our positive rights to health care cannot both be fulfilled, and in order for one of us to fulfill them we’d have to violate the other’s negative right to liberty and property.

Indeed, it is not possible to have any moral theology whatsoever without an acceptance of private property. One cannot give generously what one does not own, and one cannot help another by stealing from him.

Means and Ends

To sum up the argument, the author couldn’t imagine the church doing a task to his satisfaction, so his response was to ask men with guns to take money from people who presumably wouldn’t part with it voluntarily, and give it to causes he valued. Everything government does is backed by threat of force. Indeed, that is the only thing that distinguishes government from all other institutions. Let’s remove the intermediary agents (IRS, law enforcement) and revisit the argument with the author as the principal actor:

Churches can’t or won’t do as much to help the poor as Parham wants so he takes a gun door to door and says, “donate or else.”

That’s clearly a barbaric and inhumane way to a more civilized and humane world. Yet voting for people who will appoint people who will hire people who will send threatening letters promising agents with the ability to use lethal force if money isn’t sent to some other agents to spend on social causes is no different in moral terms. The means of the kingdom of God are service, sacrifice, grace and love. The means of all earthy kingdoms are brute force and the threat of it.

When the rich man refused to sell all his possessions and give the proceeds to the poor, Jesus did not send Peter and John after him to extract a percentage on threat of imprisonment. He let him walk away. We are to do the same.

Cross-posted at CommonSenseConcept.org

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Private Charity Isn’t Enough

Despite this criticism, I think there is value in helping others in a material way.  The question is how?We are all familiar with the dangers of dependency associated with various forms of charity.  So then, how can we engage in Christian charity without fear of making things worse than when we started?  How can we know what charitable acts will not have unintended consequences?  How can we truly improve the material lot of the less fortunate?

First, we should see charity, as all virtues, not as a matter of public policy but a matter of individual behavior and personal, not collective, duty.  (This article by Baldy Harper is an excellent and clear reminder of how we should go about genuine charity.)  However, if we are going to enter the realm of public policy with our charitable efforts, we need to think clearly about what we intend to do and what is likely to happen.  I propose that, in regards to helping the poor through policy, the crucial point is this: “First, do no harm.”

There exist today innumerable government policies that do manifest harm to the poor.  If we seek to improve their situation, it is incumbent on us to study at least basic economics so we can see how minimum wage laws, business regulations, tariffs and subsidies hurt the poor.  The undoing of bad policy, not the making of new policy, should be priority number one. New social welfare programs, redistribution schemes and other “progressive” reforms are not helpful to the poor, and in the very least should not even be considered until the policies known to be harmful are removed.

I believe U.S. immigration restrictions are some of most harmful policies to the poor today* – at least in terms of U.S. policies.  If Christians in America want to talk seriously about materially helping the poor, they should focus their attention on removing barriers to immigration before they pack up and head out on short-term humanitarian missions.  I find it shocking how many Christians, even those actively engaged in efforts to help the poor, still support policies that make it a crime for the poor to peacefully seek a better life for their families.  I am dumbfounded by Christians who help to rebuild poor communities after disasters, or who seek to build relationships with the poor and at the same time advocate building a physical wall at the border barring the poor from the same opportunity we have.

The common refrain, “I’m not opposed to legal immigration, just illegal immigration,” is devoid of meaning for any thinking Christian.  If the laws of man are not in and of themselves moral as are the laws of God, than making an act illegal is not sufficient to make it wrong.  If moving your family to a place that improves your situation is wrong, who of us is right?

Christians who support some immigrants – skilled workers, engineers, individuals from some countries and not others – might heed a poignant reminder from James:

“For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, “You sit here in a good place,” and you say to the poor man, “You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives?”’ James 2:2-4 (NASB)

Saying to the poor, “You stand in this line and fill out this paperwork” while we say to the “skilled” workers, “come right in!” seems to defy the notion of not being “respecters of men”.

As I mentioned previously, I firmly believe that what Christians have to offer is so much more than physical comfort.  I think our duties are to help the oppressed, wearies, burdened, lonely, depressed and desperate in the deepest, spiritual sense.  However, if we claim to care about the material well-being of the poor, and if we seek to improve their lot not just with private efforts but by public policy, I do not see how any new policy can be recommended while the massive harm of immigration restrictions looms overhead.

—————————

*Tariffs, subsidies, trade restrictions, foreign aid and foreign military intervention are also incredibly harmful to the poor.  Protecting rich (by world standards) U.S. farmers by cutting the poor out of the market is economically and morally backward.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

The Christian Obligation to the Poor: Do No Harm

Impressively positive ideas such as “social responsibility,” “fairness,” “the public good,” and “equality” that nobody would ever oppose are used to attract people to give up their rights for the Progressive agendas. Slippery definitions of “common good” or “human rights” (their favorite phrase) justify usurping power from individuals to help “the most vulnerable among us”—the elderly, poor, unhealthy, or immigrant. Since Jesus sacrificed his life for the good of the world, we are to do the same. A society built on this principle of love for one’s neighbor is the only way to create a just society. And, so the argument goes, sacrifice is the best, or only, way to abide by this principle.

This is a savvy way to win the hearts and minds of Christians (and non-Christians) who desire justice. The invitation to “think beyond ourselves” is attractive to those who preach self-sacrifice as the ultimate way to love for one’s neighbor. In a politicized society where democracy is among the highest ideals, people feel warm and fuzzy about collective solutions to the world’s problems. Acting together is better than acting alone, and statements like the following are common:

“We need to fight terrorism.”

“We need comprehensive immigration reform.”

“We need to have a social safety net.”

“We need to stop people from doing drugs.”

“We need to provide health care for everyone.”

Phrases like these abound each day, if not coming from our friends or coworkers, then on the news. Everyone wants to live in a better world. Everyone has an opinion (or three). Everyone wants solutions. Yet Progressives relish a grandiose politically-defined collective called “we,” where power and authority reside at the top. Attaching the sentiments of democracy doesn’t negate the inherent pyramid structure of their arrangement. Even the most purely moral society cannot be arranged this way because those at the top will lack the sufficient knowledge necessary to successfully meet society’s needs. It can only produce an imitation because people become arbitrarily grouped and defined by the supposed “experts” influencing those in power. Individual rights are subsumed under the banner of social justice.

“We” is a loaded word with multiple meanings that can be used to satisfy both cooperative and coercive efforts. It can be delineated in various ways. “We” could be the people of a county, a state, a nation, or a continent. “We” could be the people of a racial segment of society. “We” could be the people of the Gulf States, or the East Coast, or the West Coast. Less geographically, “we” can be a little league, a country club, or a church. Americans are accustomed to thinking about “we” in terms of national identity, in part because since early childhood government schools have conditioned us to think in terms of national boundaries. But the scope of 300 million people make the term “we” a precious entity when the hands of power are concentrated at the top.

But is there a better way to achieve a just society than to define the word “we” by geopolitical identities? Is there a more ethical way for individuals to associate that not only respects their unique differences, but also allows for unity within the diversity of voices? Is there a peaceful way to come together for a common effort toward social justice? And if we find better ways to define “we,” can these groups be based on love and cooperation rather than on power and coercion in order to improve society effectively?

To answer this question, the Christian must think about how he regards his neighbor. Does he believe her to be a free and unique individual created to reflect one of the many diverse qualities of God’s image here on earth? If so, he must then respect her diverse and unique gifts and talents as complements to the rest of society, and permit her to associate with whomever she pleases. He cannot regard her as merely a single unit made to fit into the larger entity called “society” so that “society” can succeed? For him to scheme grandiose social arrangements by starting with “society” violates her by robbing her of respect and individuality.

The early church movement described in Acts 2 has been falsely labeled “Christian socialism.” What is ignored is the obvious point that the success of this new movement was due to the voluntary nature of the collective the early believers were placing themselves within. The Spirit of God guided them, to be sure, but there was nothing coercive about the movement. Everyone’s needs were met not because those involved had to but because everyone involved wanted to. In this way, doing justice is about more than good outcomes, it is about the ways in which those outcomes are brought about.

It is not a Christian duty to ensure that our subjective preferences are imposed upon those around us who may and do have very different preferences. It is our Christian duty to love our neighbor and fight injustice. To seek a just society means we must advocate for a free society where individuals are embraced as unique and worthy of being handed the power to their own lives. We must oppose a planned social order and seeking a free one because we know that groups that emerge spontaneously through free association are likelier to provide a social benefit because people are free to participate. Their benefit to the individual and to society depends largely on the extent to which these groups are joined voluntarily. Forcing people to belong to and identify with the collective effort of seeking social justice will create a society that is neither social nor just.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Thoughts on the word “We”

Capitalism, by conquering poverty, creates the “problem” of poverty.

If we look back over the history of the past two or three thousand years we realize that most people who have ever lived on this planet were desperately poor, not merely poor by our standards – poor by any standards; miserably housed, shabbily clothed, and continually on the verge of starvation, only to go over the edge by the hundreds of thousands during the regularly recurring famines.

Medieval Europe is regarded by many scholars as one of the high points in world civilization. It gave us the great cathedrals, scholastic philosophy, magnificent works of art, literature like Dante’s Divine Comedy, specimens of craftsmanship that grace our museums, and chivalry. But the Middle Ages in Europe suffered from a number of famines. Between 1201 and 1600 there were seven famines, averaging ten years of famine per century. Coming down to 1709, there was a famine in France that wiped out one million people, five percent of the population. The last great natural famine in Europe was the Potato Famine in Ireland in the late 1840s, which claimed about one and a half million lives.

But Europe has always been a favored region, more prosperous than the rest of the world, less subject to natural disasters than Asia. There have been starving times in Western civilization, but never were they of the same order of magnitude as the disasters in the Orient. India and China have been especially vulnerable to famines. A famine in China between the years 1876 and 1879 resulted in an estimated 15 million deaths. And within living memory, a famine in China’s Hunan Province in 1929 resulted in two million dead. Ten major famines in India between 1860 and 1900 caused the death of close to 15 million people. During the Bengal famine of 1943-44—in and around Calcutta-one and a half million people died of starvation and the epidemics that followed.

I have recited these rather unpleasant facts, not for their own sake, but to emphasize a neglected or overlooked truism: Poverty is the natural state of mankind. Poverty is the rule; prosperity is the exception. In most parts of the globe, in most periods of history—including the present—most people most of the time have been or are desperately poor. Prosperity is what the ruling class enjoys. The rich are the superior warriors, the superior hunters, the favorites of the gods, and these wealthy few—it was believed—deserve what they have.

Water runs downhill, fire burns, grass is green, the masses of people are poor. This was the perceived natural order of things, accepted and rarely questioned. Such was the mentality that prevailed throughout most of the world most of the time—until a few centuries ago. Poverty for the multitudes was simply a fact of life. It was a hardship, but being poor was not perceived as deprivation.

The rich were envied, but the envy rarely translated into thoughts of redistributing their wealth. Occasionally something triggered a peasants’ revolt or a slave rebellion, but when each of these fizzled out, all ranks went back to “The good old rule/ The simple plan/ That they should take who have the power/ And they should keep who can.” Universal poverty was a fact. But poverty was not a problem! The distinction is simple: a fact or situation just is; a fact or situation for which there is perceived to be a solution becomes thereby a problem, and a new mentality is generated.

The Capitalist Alternative

Masses of people, the world over, have now been persuaded that someone or something keeps them poor, and their resentment follows. This fact helps to explain the modern world’s hostility toward capitalism. Capitalism is not at all the cause of the poverty of the noncapitalistic nations, but it is the source of their dissatisfaction with their poverty. Capitalism in fact overcomes poverty; but in overcoming poverty capitalism creates the problem of poverty.

There was a breakthrough a few centuries ago, one of those great tidal movements in human affairs resulting in a new mentality and a different way of viewing the human condition. It was the discovery by the people of a few western nations of the complex set of institutions which later came be to be called capitalism. The breakthrough might be symbolized by two documents, one penned by Thomas Jefferson setting forth the vision of a nation founded upon a new philosophy, that “all men are created equal,” that they are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” and that everyone is entitled to equal justice under the law. These axioms form the cornerstone of the free society.

At the same time, on another continent, a man named Smith wrote a great book which explained why the economy need not be centrally planned, directed, and controlled by the government—as it was under the mercantilism of his day. Let the law be vigilant to protect the life, liberty, and property of all — as the Whigs advocated — and the buying habits of freely choosing men and women in the marketplace will provide all the directives needed for the producers to grow and manufacture the things consumers want most. This is the market economy, the backbone of a free society. Under these conditions a free people will multiply their productivity and thus generate their own prosperity.

Capitalism is the name given to the set of institutions which enable free people to produce wealth up to the limit of their time, talents, capacity, and desire; and then to voluntarily exchange the fruits of their labors with others. Capitalism becomes fully operative only when there are institutional guarantees of individual liberty, with laws designed to secure the G0d-given rights of every person to life, liberty, and property.

The intelligent and ethical way of arranging human action in society, the free society-market economy way of life which we are labeling capitalism, was like a bootstrap by which whole nations of people could and did elevate themselves out of misery, grinding poverty, and periodic starvation. Capitalism tackled poverty using the only means by which poverty can be alleviated, namely, by increased productivity.

Remove every obstacle that hinders the productive and creative energies of men and women and you create an abundance of goods and services, shared by everyone involved according to his contribution to the productive process, as that contribution is judged by the man’s peers. This ever-increasing supply of goods and services will move the entire society up the rungs of the ladder of wealth. Some will climb to the top rungs, but even the least well-off on the bottom rungs will experience a level of well-being that would be regarded as affluence in noncapitalistic societies past or present.

Liberty and the Economic Miracle

The results of this new social order were almost miraculous, but there was nothing magical about the way the results were achieved. The results were achieved by people who had the intelligence to understand the requirements of a free and prosperous commonwealth, and who possessed the integrity and character to live by those requirements. We had a significant number of people a couple of centuries ago, who “pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor” to establish not simply a new nation, but a nation founded upon new principles.

Capitalism generated a new mentality, a new perception of the human condition. After the experience of capitalism anywhere, people everywhere came to regard prosperity as the rule; poverty as the exception. The fact that we launched a “war on poverty” demonstrates this. No one would contemplate a war on poverty in India or Africa, where need is much more desperate than here. Only in a prosperous nation like our own, where the great war against poverty had already been won — by means of the market economy — would the elimination of the last, lingering remnants of poverty emerge as a political issue. The trouble is that if we employ the wrong remedy to eradicate the remaining pockets of poverty — as we are doing — we may find that we have destroyed prosperity instead, as in the familiar story about killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. Charles Murray’s recent book, Losing Ground, demonstrates that we have been losing the political war against poverty despite spending hundreds of billions of dollars yearly.

The 18th-century breakthrough I’ve referred to brought with it a new understanding of how economic goods come into being, the nature of material wealth, and how this new wealth is allocated in differing amounts among all the participants in the productive process. The economic breakthrough was not miraculous; it was preceded by a new vision of how the ancient ideas of liberty, justice, and law should be applied. No longer Were these venerable ideas to be the prerogative of the few; equal justice under the law was for everyone; liberty was to be enjoyed by all, and every person had a natural right to the property created by his labor.

For thousands of years the planet was regarded as a static warehouse, containing a fixed amount of wealth, impossible to increase, never enough for everyone. The serf tilling his field grumbled that he had to pay various feudal dues to the lord of the manor, but he was realistic enough to know that even if he kept everything he produced, he’d still go hungry much of the time. He was cursed by low productivity, caused by a faulty understanding of the nature of wealth.

When it is believed that the earth contains only a fixed amount of wealth, the preoccupation is with the allocation of what’s already here, which means, invariably, that one man’s gain is another’s loss.

The new perception that dawned during the 18th century was that new wealth is in a process of continuous creation, in ever-increasing amounts, with more for everyone resulting from each new cycle of production. This new abundance would be distributed—not equally, but equitably—by voluntary exchanges in the marketplace, with each person receiving from his fellows what they think his contribution is worth to them. Each of us benefits in such a voluntary exchange.

This is a paradigm of capitalistic society; peaceful exchanges within the rules, with the rules designed to protect person and property. Each participant in a voluntary exchange is a net gainer, having given up what he wants less to get what he wants more. And as these exchanges multiply every person has a strong inducement to work harder, producing more of the things other people will want from him in exchange. And as each person betters his own circumstances he improves the lives of other people. Production, in a free society, begets production, with more for everyone.

In the pre-capitalistic ages the kings and nobles used their political power to enrich themselves at the expense of the peasants. The serfs who did most of the work were entitled to enjoy only a portion of the goods they produced. Post-capitalistic societies operate in similar fashion. Those who possess political power in welfarist America or socialist Britain or Soviet Russia, exercise the taxing power to deprive productive people of a huge chunk of their earnings. These tax dollars — minus the political costs of effecting these transfers — are then doled out to various “deserving” pressure groups in the private sector.

We witness what Frederic Bastiat might have called a Plunder-bund — the law designed to protect life, liberty, and property perverted into an instrument to enrich some by impoverishing others. Albert Jay Nock referred to the law thus perverted as The State — holders of public office in cahoots with factions in the private sector to operate a scare against productive people.

Our basic political structures were largely built around the conviction that, “to the producer belongs the fruits of his toil.” We were to have a private property order. The Declaration does not mention a right to property, substituting a right to “the pursuit of happiness.” We cannot read Jefferson’s mind as he wrote the document, but we do know what was in almost everyone else’s mind at the time; it was Life, Liberty, and Property.

The colonists had migrated out of situations in Europe where they lived on the estate of a master, working mostly for his benefit and only partly for their own. Here in the colonies the idea of freehold property was established. You owned your farm in fee simple, which means that your estate was your very own. You could will it to your descendants, sell it, dispose of it as you wished.

What you produced on your property was yours to keep, or sell, or give away. Now, you owned what your labor created, and you had an enormous incentive to devise labor-saving devices and work harder, longer, and more skillfully because everything you produced was yours. You got the added benefit; not some absentee landlord. Wealth creation increased by geometrical progression under these circumstances, with free men and women living under a just system of laws, holding a strict property right in the fruits of their labor.

The American colonists of the 17th and 18th centuries lived in a society whose primary institution was not government, or the press, or business, or the academy; it was the Church. As Alexis de Tocqueville observed of us in the 1830s: “Religion… is the first of their political institutions.” And it was the colonial churches which labored for the creation of the kind of personal character in men and women which a free society, with its market economy, demands as its basic ingredient.

We are reminded of this need for exemplary character by the late, great economist Wilhelm Roepke who said that the market economy cannot “… go on in a moral vacuum… Self-discipline, a sense of justice, honesty, fairness, chivalry, moderation, public spirit, respect for human dignity, firm ethical norms—all of these are things which people must possess before they go to market and compete with each other.” And as these early Americans entered the marketplace they practiced the Puritan ethic of work and thrift, believing that thus they served God as co-creators of a new nation, and proved that poverty is not mankind’s fate.

The Wealth of the West

The Western World is relatively wealthy because it is relatively capitalistic. The Third World is poor because it shuns capitalism. This is the truth of the matter, obvious to any person who examines the issues impartially. But this truth is overcome by a worldwide ideology which declares that the wealth of the West is the cause of Third World poverty!

President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania voiced this Third World ideology when he wrote: “In one world, as in one state, when I am rich because you are poor, or I am poor because you are rich, the transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor is a matter of right; it is not an appropriate matter for charity.” Along the same line, Third World voices tell us that the United States is to blame for the famine in Ethiopia — a country which exported its surplus grain and other foodstuffs until the Communists took over.

Third World politicians have a method in their madness: they want things from the West — American dollars, foodstuffs, machinery, and other goods — so they try to convince us that we owe it to them because we are to blame for their plight. This is the Marxist notion that the rich, under capitalism, get richer by making the poor poorer. This ploy would not work except that millions of Americans have also swallowed the Marxist exploitation theory; that those who are better off got that way by making others worse off; that the wealth created by capitalism is the cause of poverty.

Here, for example, are the words from a keynote address given at the World Council of Churches Assembly held in Vancouver two years ago: “We inhabitants of the industrial nations… exploit the majority of the world’s population… The demon of profit for the few at the expense of the many, i.e., their impoverishment, has the whole world economic system firmly in its grip.” These false and defamatory sentiments are echoed by many academic and ecclesiastical voices, here and abroad.

Americans do consume more than most people elsewhere and it might be interesting to find out why. The answer is simple, to the point of being self-evident: Americans consume more because Americans produce more. Americans produce more, not because we are superior beings, but because our relatively free institutions impose fewer restraints on our productive energies than is the case in other nations, and our private property system guarantees to the producer that he will own the fruits of his toil. Any nation that adopts the free market will be more productive, and thus more prosperous, and in the long run this is the only way to feed the world’s hungry.

A False Axiom

The redistributionist policies of our own welfare state, as well as similar international policies which tax Americans in order to subsidize other nations, is based on the false axiom that the wealth of some is the cause of the poverty of others. Something like this was true during the pre-capitalistic ages, but capitalism introduced an entirely new ball game in which each one of us prospers to the degree that he contributes to the well-being of other people, as they see it. Walter Lippmann puts it this way: “For the first time in human history men had come upon a way of producing wealth in which the good fortune of others multiplied their own.” Freedom in production and exchange does not promise perfection. When people are free, many of their choices may offend us, which means that the free society demands infinite tolerance for each other’s foibles. But that’s a small price to pay for all the benefits received.

To believe that wealth is the cause of poverty makes as much sense as to assume that health is the cause of disease. And to contend that the remedy for poverty is to soak the rich and give to the poor is as idiotic as believing that the only way to heal the sick is to make the healthy ill. The sick can be made well only as they adopt the sensible regimen of the healthy, and the poor can move out of poverty only as they become more productive. The world’s economic problems and other ills will only worsen unless there is a revival of that sound philosophy, which, two centuries ago, gave us the free society and the market economy which I’ve been labeling capitalism. Education along these lines — replacing bad ideas with better ones — is slow, frustrating, uphill work. But there is no other way.

Meanwhile, we try to live with — while working to correct — the false assumption of people everywhere, that wealth is the cause of poverty. The truth of the matter is that poverty in a nation is caused by the low productivity in that nation. And it is our good fortune that there is a simple recipe for overcoming low productivity while moving in the direction of prosperity. The recipe is: follow the prescriptions of people like Jefferson and Madison; Adam Smith, and Bastiat; Mises, Hayek, Roepke, Friedman, and others. The remedy is simple, but simple is not necessarily easy!

Read more from the Edmund Opitz Archive.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

The War on Poverty Revisited

In today’s political climate, a hot button issue is the legalization of drugs and more specifically that of marijuana. In this essay, I hope to convince you of two things:

1. That the Constitution does not grant the authority to deal with matters of drug prohibition to the Federal Government.
2. That mixing government and morality is highly dangerous, and as Christians we should be willing to help those who are held in the firm grasp of drug addiction.

Constitutional Reasoning Against Prohibition

As a (Christian) libertarian one of the things in the debate over drug legalization that troubles me is the notion that Federal law trumps state law. When the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, they delegated to the Federal Government a list of 18 enumerated powers by which the government had the authority and responsibility to fulfill. They also wrote the 9^th and 10^th amendments, which delegate all other powers to the individual states or to the people of those states. To defend their position proponents of drug prohibition will immediate fall back on the “Supremacy Clause,” and either through willful or forgivable ignorance they forget an essential element to the entire issue: what the Founding Fathers said about the Supremacy Clause.

William Davie, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention from North Carolina said:

“This Constitution, as to the powers therein granted, is constantly to be the supreme law of the land. Every power ceded by it must be executed without being counteracted by the laws or constitutions of the individual states. Gentlemen should distinguish that it is not the supreme law in the exercise of power not granted. It can be supreme only in cases consistent with the powers specially granted, and not in usurpations.”

From The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution.

Mr. Davie’s point is that the prerogatives of the Federal Government, those eighteen enumerated powers, and any laws to that affect, do hold sway over any laws that emanate from the states, but that this authority does not, nor should it be interpreted to exceed, those 18 enumerated power. Anything not enumerated in the Constitution as an area of authority of the Federal Government is the authority of the states or the people. For the prohibitionist point to be valid they would have to cite at least one of the 18 enumerated powers which might in any way give such authority, and having reviewed those eighteen specific enumerated powers it is my opinion that such a grant of authority does not exist. That being the case, what bolsters my opposition on a Constitutional level to the “Supremacy Clause” argument are the aforementioned 9^th and 10^th amendments. The 9^th Amendment to the United States Constitution states the following,:

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

This does further damage to the “Supremacy” argument because it clearly indicates that the Federal Governments authority is limited to those eighteen enumerated powers in the Constitution. I could leave my argument there, but to be sure that there is no flaw I would offer an explanation as to the 10^th Amendments meaning as well. The 10^th Amendment to the United States Constitution reads as follows, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Again, this clearly indicates that the areas of authority of the Federal Government are limited and defined, or enumerated. And that any and all other areas of power are the prerogative of the individual states or the people.

Arguments in favor of the “Supremacy Clause” are at the least unfounded, and at their worst are an interpretation that does away with key elements of the Constitution, the 9^th and 10^th Amendments, and ultimately make the Constitution a dead letter, as well as making it more easy to simply do away with the rights of the people by Legislative decree.

Moral Reasoning Against Prohibition

First, I want to make one point absolutely clear. Yes, I am arguing for the legalization of drugs, especially marijuana. Does that mean that the consumption of drugs has garnered my tacit approval? No.But for intelligent people to argue against the notion that a man should be allowed to consume in any fashion any substance he chooses is to grant a quiet license to the Federal Government. This quiet license allows the government to legislate on any and all forms of morality, and it goes without saying government is not the best arbiter of what is moral. If the government can legislate on the morality of consuming a potentially dangerous substance where does its assumed authority end? Does it have the right to legislate against speech it deems immoral or dangerous? Does it have the right to bar free individuals from congregating together for the purpose of perpetuating the furtherance of a shared belief that the government views offensive or dangerous? Does it have the right to tell us how to raise our children, where we send them to school or what we teach them ourselves? Or what we teach them about our religious and personal views? Does the government have the right to muzzle our minister, priest, rabbi or cleric in the name of morality? Would we abide by the entrance of a bureaucrat in to our place of worship to tell our minister, priest, rabbi or cleric what he can or cannot preach/teach? Of course not! None of us would abide by the formation of a government agency tasked with the unconstitutional implementation and oversight of such things, nor would we abide by a bureaucrat coming into our home and telling us what books, toys, clothes and food are good or not for our children.

This dependency on government is dangerous and hypocritical. It is dangerous because it does not take into account individual responsibility. It is hypocritical because many who call for prohibition would overwhelmingly defend their right to decide themselves on other matters relating to their own body and beliefs and those of their families. Let us be clear, I am not calling for a libertine society where anything goes. I am calling for individual responsibility. The purpose of the law should be to protect individual rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

We live in a country known for its desire to help, to donate money to charitable, social, religious, and first aid programs. The tsunami in the countries of the Indian Ocean, and more recently the earthquake in Haiti are prime examples of this. The large sums of money, reaching the millions, if not billions of dollars, are an indication that a large portion of society could be willing to donate to organizations or programs whose stated goal or more, is to rehabilitate those who are snared in the vice of habitual drug use. This in essence would give individuals the social, secular and religious impetus to open such institutions. And as it relates to Christianity, it is a perfect avenue for healing the body and soul of those on the fringes of society. The prohibitionist argument, it seems, has ensnared well-intentioned Christians in the notions that all drugs users should be locked up and the key thrown away. We see far less compassion today for habitual drug users than Jesus himself had for a prostitute and a man possessed. Jesus Christ did not see an infirmed man, foaming at the mouth and spouting nonsensical ravings. Nor did he see a filthy harlot. He saw a man and a woman, guilty of sin and on their way to an everlasting hell, and in his merciful love, he stooped to forgive one, and worked a miracle in forgiving the other. As far as drug use is concerned, there remains one key question. When are professing Christians going to stop pontificating about charity and kindness and start putting those principles into practice? Instead of asking coercive government to assume a moral responsibility it was never intended to take, we should be diligently seeking to aid those whom society views as disposable, unwanted or undesirable. I am reminded that for all our modernity there are still those in this country, like the homeless, and drug addicts of the Philippines, who I have seen with my own eyes, who still need our help both physically, financially, and spiritually. What of them? Will we leave them hung out to dry? Or will we use our freedom to help those in need, and to bring them the Gospel which God gave us and decreed that we should take to all mankind.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Why would Christians want prohibition?

I saw this today at a demonstration at UT-Austin in front of Gregory Gym and the library. Of all the ridiculous things I’ve seen in the past year, I think this takes the cake.

I asked the gentleman how Obama could be “Christianity in action” if it requires aggression against a neighbor to act. His response, I kid you not, was that back in the first century they had despots as leaders, and now we have representative government. After laughing hysterically, I then proceeded to ask how he justifies his task of blowing up the Middle East, I mean, they’re still his representatives of Christ, right? On the contrary: “Love for neighbor cannot be delegated” said Pope Benedict XVI.

I just can’t wait for Obama to go back to DC so he can put more Christianity into action!

I’ll post more about the protest later. Lots of stuff happened…

Thanks to Heather from LP-Texas for taking the picture. Heroic!

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Christianity in Action – the Obama Presidency

Obama’s New Theocracy | The Beacon

The depiction of Barack Obama as the new, secular, American messiah began with his full approval during his presidential campaign and led directly to the spectacle of his coronation/inauguration. In what can only be described as a delusional, self-righteous pronouncement of himself as the new messiah (”the chosen one”), Obama has stated that: “We are the ones we‘ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” [emphasis added]

The second includes a well-known quote from Lewis about “theocracy”:

C.S. Lewis on the Evil and Corruption of Theocracy

I fully embrace the maxim (which . . . borrows from a Christian) that “all power corrupts.” I would go further. The loftier the pretensions of the power, the more meddlesome, inhuman, and oppressive it will be. Theocracy is the worst of all possible governments. All political power is at best a necessary evil: but it is least evil when its sanctions are most modest and commonplace, when it claims no more than to be useful or convenient and sets itself strictly limited objectives. Anything transcendental or spiritual, or even anything very strongly ethical, in its pretensions is dangerous and encourages it to meddle with our private lives. Let the shoemaker stick to his last. Thus the Renaissance doctrine of Divine Right is for me a corruption of monarchy; Rousseau’s General Will, of democracy; racial mysticisms, of nationality. And Theocracy, I admit and even insist, is the worst corruption of all.

—From The World’s Last Night: And Other Essays, by C.S. Lewis

Now, be sure to distinguish the difference between “theocracy” as Lewis expounds and the direct rule of God, as in the time of biblical Israel. Of course, Yahweh is the Great King of the Universe and ultimately we Christians believe that God rules all. Lewis, however, is talking about “faith-based statism,” which is an awful, terrible system.

David Theroux is the founder and president of the Independent Institute.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Obama’s New Theocracy

An interesting discussion ensued between a commenter named Cathy and myself. She had a genuine concern for the well-being of those who have a hard time helping themselves, and I thought our discussion was very fruitful. With her permission, I have put together all of our comments (briefly edited) into this article in hopes that others may benefit as well. As libertarians, we emphasize rightly how the free market works to make people better off. However, we don’t always talk about how the envisioned charitable institutions will work. Cathy makes the excellent point that we should consider such things for the future.

Here is how the conversation proceeded…

————–

CATHY:

I hate taxes. However, I have an observation: the arithmetic assumes that all those from whom the government steals “for charitable purposes” will voluntarily contribute to any philanthropic or charitable entity without government coercion or control.

Haven’t other stats shown that in fact liberals are 90% stingier than church-going people and conservatives? So everything the government takes from liberals, even at its grossly inefficient ratio, would be lost to any charitable cause.

For simplification, let’s assume a neat 50/50 split between the two broad classifications of liberals and conservatives. If 50% of the measly 25% in government taxes is eliminated, doesn’t that in fact leave a huge hole for private charity to try to fill?

On the other hand, I suppose it could be argued that people prone to charity might give more and thus shrink the gap. Furthermore, isn’t it also known that most people give to churches/charities knowing they would get a tax break on it (one of the most insidious of Christian compromises with government — but now Obama’s rescinded)?

Wouldn’t that mean that those who obey Christ in their giving would have to bear an even heavier burden?

Isn’t the bottom line that – if we abolish the 16th Amendment, the Fed, and the IRS (all of which I am in favor of doing!) – we are faced with drastically cutting humanitarian aid to our neighbors, and then organizing local groups of people regardless of whether they’re liberal or conservative or Christian to meet the needs of those truly in need?

I’m in favor of this, but I see many problems ahead and many more people than at present falling through the cracks while the kinks are smoothed out.

What do all of you think?

————–

NORMAN:

The thing is Cathy, I think that those neo-liberals who SAY people should give but do not give their own money should still NOT have their money taken from them in the form of taxes in order to do public charity work. Plenty of people do not act in accordance with what they preach, yet that is, in effect, their right.

Government tends to mismanage and misallocate money dedicated to charitable work. Allowing that money to be retained by the original owners will allow them to determine what is an appropriate giving response, spending response, and investment response. Each of those will work to make people better off because of the win-win nature of trade and economic growth (see part 10 of this series). In the long run, all people are better off – including the poor in this country and beyond – when we honor each others’ choices rather than use coercion to control actions. (That may not exactly have been what you were getting at, but I hope that helps.)

You are correct that there will likely be people that fall through the cracks. Libertarians don’t promise a puppies-and-rainbows world. HOWEVER, people are ALREADY falling through the cracks, and I sincerely think that the chance of falling through the cracks is drastically reduced in the free society that libertarians envision. Make sense?

————–

CATHY:

Hi, Norman. Thanks for responding.

Do you have any solid numbers to support the contention that “the chance of falling through the cracks is drastically reduced in the free society libertarians envision”?

That’s what I’m getting at. There will be MORE thrown out on the street; forget “ALREADY.” The point is MORE, and the numbers will be huge.

Mainly because we haven’t had a Christian, restrained, moral society for perhaps 200 years now. We don’t know how to rear responsible citizens in the home; there is no moral consensus in our society. “As long as you don’t harm someone else” is hardly conducive to “DO GOOD to all.” If the impetus isn’t to actively DO GOOD, very little good will actually be done voluntarily. And that is anti-Christ and anti-Christian.

I am a Christian Libertarian. But I do see the point of the “liberals” that people who CAN’T take care of themselves will be forsaken as people struggle with far more limited means to maintain their care.

While Christ said we will always have the poor with us, was that an endorsement for ignoring them, for not using a government we do have a voice in (unlike He did under the Roman occupation of Israel) to obey His command at Luke 10:25-37 to “Go, and do likewise” as a Church/society, rather than narrowly as limited individuals?

Wasn’t one of Reagan’s cost-cutting actions to stop funding many mental institutions, with the result that overnight we had people on the street — which we now call “the homeless.” There were not these people on the street before Reagan took office. Most of the people on the street now are mental cases incapable of looking after themselves (alcoholism, drug addiction, and PTSD don’t help), and even with present government programs we cannot seem to deal with them as behooves the dignity of human beings created in the image of God. But at least there are at least as many who are getting the (expensive) care they need.

What will happen when even those grossly bloated and inefficient government programs are no more?

There are some people in my family I am incapable of taking care of, either physically, psychologically, medically, or monetarily. And I don’t want to see them wandering the streets, dirty, cold, sick, miserable, with rags for clothing, pushing plastic bags and trash around as their “household goods and treasures,” eating out of trash cans. As I see someone’s family members doing daily all over this country.

These people can’t work; they are thus not under Paul’s admonition to work or starve. What about them?

It’s insulting to imply I naively expect a “puppies-and-rainbows world.” But neither can I accept that Christian libertarians are excused by Christ for turning their eyes away from those He made clear at Matthew 25 He identifies with, either.

Christ’s message was for individuals, but it wasn’t about individualism. And I’m simply asking what is the plan for those whom Christ loves as much as He loves us, and for whom He also died, who cannot — not will not, but cannot — take care of themselves? Has anyone thought about this, and if not, why not? If so, what’s the plan, and shouldn’t it be published everywhere to help sell our libertarian, individual liberties, small-government position?

I think one of the obstructions to the larger society’s acceptance of the libertarian position is that it fails to take into consideration human frailty and the unpredictable vicissitudes of life. It’s not just someone else who may be unfortunate enough to become a walking vegetable, an “untouchable,” but by tomorrow, it could be me. Then what? Who will take care of me? I see that outside of government institutions and some church outreaches, no one takes care of others; therefore I conclude that if all government programs were shut down, and churches lose much of their funding, no one will take care of me. And this conclusion is right.

My “individualism” will overnight turn into absolute invisibility, and I will be left to die and be buried (maybe) as if I’d never existed. And none of the utilitarian individualists will care; in fact, their philosophy by definition rules out caring for anyone not capable of exercising their own sovereign individuality.

This is the specter haunting libertarianism, even Christian libertarianism. The flaw is that because all consciences are equally entitled to their personal preferences (moral relativism), logically, there is no social moral claim on anyone’s conscience, hence society has no moral claim on the individual, other than condemnation of outright and deliberate harm to another.

James the Apostle says there are sins of omission just as there are sins of commission. And perhaps omission is the greater sin, as it’s personal, private, and not subject to scrutiny and correction from without?

So, what do libertarians envision for the care of those who cannot care for themselves? Other than chance?

Do you see?

————–

NORMAN:

Right off, I need to apologize – I didn’t mean to sound insulting with my “puppies and rainbows” thing. It’s just a silly way I like to say that I do not promise a Utopian world of bliss. Bad things will happen. People are going to get hurt, there will be aggression. Yet, I do think that a society where institutionalized aggression – the State – is used as the basis of charity cannot work in the long run. That’s my primary thesis.

In my experience, there are relatively few cases where people are flat out incapable of helping themselves. Yet, they do exist. How then might we address these?

First off, we must recognize that many, many resources are being used in the form of “charity” for people who can and SHOULD help themselves. When those resources are freed up and those people who can work do, then production takes place and wealth can be saved. This is the only way in the first place (further savings) for how charity can ultimately take place.

With these savings in place, individuals will be able to choose adequately where to be charitable. I suspect that, just as we have now, many churches (like my own) will be able to minister actively to those people who cannot help themselves. There will probably continue to be charitable organizations supported by multiple groups (including religious groups) that work these things out. Furthermore, the families of those “helpless” ones – assuming that they do care for them – will likely be active as well in pursuing their well-being.

Keep in mind that it was only in the eras of prosperity — when everyone didn’t have to farm in order to survive — that institutions arose to help better meet the needs of those who didn’t function in society. To claim further, then, that the government is the only way to help these people in the end seems to ignore the very conditions whereby the benevolent organizations were created in the first place. (I recognize you’re not saying this implicitly, I’m just illustrating the point.)

All in all, the point still stands – charity forced at the point of a gun is not charity at all. It is immoral — but it’s also going to be inefficient to help effectively. We may not understand, nor can we predict, exactly how benevolent organizations will emerge on the free market – just as we cannot anticipate what technological innovations will take place – but we CAN recognize from history that by allowing the market to work these institutions are very likely to emerge. Maybe you’ll be one of the great innovators in this area!

Does that explain the position better?

————–

CATHY:

Hi, Norman. Thank you again. And thanks for clearing up the implication of my naivete.

I agree absolutely that government — especially at the point of a gun — cannot (and adamantly MUST NOT!) force “charity.” That is not my point; I’m not looking for government to do that which Christians should be doing.

I’m simply asking if anyone’s thought about the implications of pure individualism, and if anyone’s thought about how to avoid the inevitable fallout from abruptly withdrawing government from those areas. Without the funds present through taxation of those who otherwise would not voluntarily give to charity or care for anyone else, Christians will have to carry that burden. Are Christians prepared?

My concern is that those people who cannot care for themselves NOT “fall through the cracks” because Christians didn’t look ahead and plan ahead to make sure that doesn’t happen to those people helplessly at their mercy. Now is the time, I believe, to be floating those ideas and plans. That is what I’m suggesting.

Yeah, I’d bell the cat, except I don’t have bells, strings, or any other means myself (to say nothing of being able to evade the teeth and claws), which is why I’m concerned about those people like some family members otherwise slated to be collateral damage — to fall through the cracks. If I can’t care for them, and the extorted money to do it is removed, and the Christian community doesn’t seem to have a clue, who will?

Balderdash on no one can predict or understand how benevolent organizations will emerge in the free market. There’s plenty of precedent to learn from and build on. Is anyone doing that, in anticipation of freedom from government coercion and taxation? Are there any plans to seal up the cracks? That’s the question. WHY should anyone HAVE to fall through the cracks?

————–

NORMAN:

Okay, I see what you’re saying now: your primary concern is the actual institutions that will come forth and provide for those needs.

My initial answer is a quite honest, “I am not sure.” Keep in mind that I didn’t say that no one can predict or understand how benevolent organizations will emerge in the free market, but rather that we, by that I mean you and I, may not understand/predict how it will happen – at least not in full. But even right after that, I said that we can recognize from history that these things DID emerge, meaning we can LEARN from history. Have I, personally, studied this in detail? Nope, sure haven’t.

I do know of a gentleman named Kevin Hodgkins at Univ. of Alabama is writing his dissertation on non-profits and argues that the “third sector” is a contrivance of the State. He is well versed in the history of charitable organizations. I should see if I still have his paper…

You can listen to Kevin’s talk at the Austrian Scholars Conference 2009 to learn more, or you can read his paper.

I don’t know if Christians are prepared. At this moment, if we had our druthers and could push the big red button to vaporize the state, I kind of doubt it. But again, I’m not certain. Christians throughout history have risen to the occasion to help needy people.

You are right, we need to be thinking about such things, just like we should try to figure out how to provide services that the State normally runs for the future libertarian society as well.

Tell you what, would you be interested in writing about some of this stuff further? I think these comments, briefly edited, would actually make a thought-provoking blog post here at LCC, maybe even at LewRockwell.com. Opening up this conversation to others would probably be worthwhile. Perhaps after that we could write an article together with some more elaboration about what those charitable organizations would look like? How does that sound to you?

————–

CATHY:

Hi, Norman. Sorry I haven’t visited in a few days . . . life, you know.

Sounds like Mr. Hodgkins will have some workable solutions. His thesis should be a veritable gold mine.

If we got rid of the 16th Amendment, the Fed, and the IRS, charitable deductions/non-profits would cease to exist, as they should. Congressman Ron Paul has often written about his experiences as a doctor affiliated with a hospital and how they handled indigent cases. Why is that so hard to do today? Because government wants control and every penny they can steal.

In the past, wasn’t it mainly Catholic charities that pioneered and carried most of the burdens of helping those who cannot help themselves? Convents and monasteries were the major players in starting hospitals, refuges, shelters, hospices…

Where are the Protestants willing to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their Catholic brethren to pick up the slack, who now grudgingly write checks to get back their tax deductions for “being good”? And, ironically, the government has just begun to deny those very tax deductions!

Will there be Christians to pick up the pieces without demanding money back from their “donations,” and without demanding their names be plastered all over the place so people — especially those who must use their “services” and facilities — will know who their “benefactors” are (people, and not God)?

Where are those Christians who will love and serve simply because Jesus said to, without needing credit or tax deductions for it in return? Who will give freely and cheerfully to those in need, rather than to a church; offerings RATHER THAN a fixed “tithe”?

Where are those Christians who will support those who must devote full time to helping those who cannot help themselves?

And what about qualified Christians who would further Christ’s love and principles in treatments and programs, rather than the overwhelming majority of today’s secular philosophies and goals?

I ask the question because it seems to me if there were more orthodox Christians in these fields, there would not be the woefully lopsided majority of secularists in all the helping fields today. We let it go; it’s gone. What will happen if our revolution succeeds? Who will recruit/replace/moderate the needed, qualified, experienced but misguided people dominating the helping fields?

And who will stand against the perfectly rational pragmatists advocating euthanasia as a valid means of sustaining an equitable libertarian society? If you’re truly a libertarian, then no one should have power over life and death — and yet libertarianism is also the ultimate utilitarian philosophy. Practical and economic factors, if not enclosed in and checked by a species-specific and Christian humane philosophy, will demand society decide whose life is productively and economically sustainable and whose is not and should not be further supported.

This is anathema to Christianity. And to humanity.

Accidents happen without getting permission first. Some of us are born into this world unable ever to take care of oneself. If not killed by an accident first, we all get old and die, and should be able to without getting permission to.

But even now all that’s changing.

What worries me is that the vast majority of today’s Christians have no idea what the Bible really says, what Jesus said, what our Christian history is, how we really got to where we are, and chillingly, they really don’t care. And without this knowledge and understanding, there cannot possibly be a civil, Christian society, no matter if it’s truly a libertarian society.

With the upheaval of abolishing big government, with our economy truly in the tank, who’s going to have the time, much less the money (what money?!), to take care of others? In the dust kicked up in the struggle, who will see those who are already fallen — and who truly CAN’T get up?

While it is right and true that every human being, bearing the image of the Creator Himself, is entitled to the freedom to be left alone by others, as long as he does no harm to others, it is also true that God Himself expects those who call themselves by His Name and are able to use that freedom to help and carry the burdens of others — who equally bear His image.

But where is that teaching among Christian libertarians, or even in our churches today?

Just as there are the more “popular,” known sins of commission (among them the philosophy that human government should be given the power to regulate all facets of life, dictate and tax), there are equally heinous sins of OMISSION. This is first and foremost concerned with neglecting our needy and helpless brothers, neighbors, even enemies.

It is the sin of omission that has given us the government we have today: through it we have more convenient, and distant, ways of helping others; we don’t have to do it ourselves. It enables us to not have to be concerned except in the most remote and abstract ways about others.

What was Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan all about? And then, when asked (incredibly!) “What should we then do?” Jesus replied, “Go, and do likewise.”

Isn’t this the gist of the Gospels? The Great Commission? Jesus’ own sacrifice?

Looking out for others first.

Otherwise, we would have no remedy for our sin and damnation. We would all have fallen through the eternal cracks, with absolutely no recourse. After all, God is the first and ultimate libertarian. He is obligated to no one for anything.

Yet He created us, to love and to love Him in return. And when we didn’t, He yet intervened for us so if we to choose we can. He carried our burden. He personally saw to it we don’t have to fall through the eternal cracks.

Is Christian libertarianism merely survival of the fittest with “Christ” tacked on to make it more palatable to some frustrated Christians, or does it matter which is first: libertarian, or Christian?

Libertarianism, pure, has no obligations or duties to anything or anyone else but to self. (And I am convinced this is the major reason there aren’t more “converts;” most people recognize we DO have duties to others, and that self ISN’T all there is.)

Christianity is all about obligations and duties, first to God/Jesus Christ, then to the rest of mankind. (But Christianity has been used as an excuse to force others into obligations that aren’t rightfully theirs, both at the end of a gun and through oppressive and unjust laws. And now it’s payback time!)

I believe elements of the two can be harmonized, but we who are Christian need to do that now, and prepare for a future of freedom and liberty, given as our unalienable birthright by God, unfettered, yet with some God-ordained and needful obligations and duties as well.

It doesn’t have to be one or the other (except for those who are not Christian; this is a good way of discerning true Christians from all others). And for Christians, it must not be. But Christians must be thinking and talking about this. And if unnecessary collateral damage is to be avoided (along with the necessary condemnation it will bring on our own heads), we MUST take the innovative lead in all the discussions, and propose and make real viable plans in preparation for a new civil society based on the sanctity and protection of life, liberty, property, justice, and Christian — voluntary and positive — love.

What if Christian libertarians actually put out workable ideas for programs that would appeal to everyone currently fed up with and (rightfully!) suspicious of our government?

Proposals/plans for making sure there is little to no “collateral damage” if we WERE actually to get rid of big government, especially its fuel, income taxes?

What happens to all those government workers, civil and military? We’re not getting traction because too many people actually do depend on government and would lose everything if it were dismantled. This is in addition to those people I’ve been talking about who truly cannot take care of themselves.

Until those people can be convinced that fending for themselves is actually viable and in their best interests — material benefits — this isn’t going to change.

If some really smart and knowledgeable people put out there in the blogosphere and it blossoms into other media, and through word-of-mouth, ideas for programs and plans that could even now be begun and that would only increase in benefits, efficiency, suitability, more people would join the movement to repeal the 16th Amendment, end the Fed, and abolish the IRS.

I believe it could all be done at the local/community level, but there must be viable plans/programs to staff and fund and sustain these needed services.

If the proposals/ideas are good enough, they’d spread like wildfire on the Internet. I think that’s all it would take. Then the revolution would have no excuse for not happening!

Your kind offer: Please forgive me for copping out on you; I’m not qualified to write about this stuff further. I have no knowledge or expertise in any field dealing with any of this. I simply have SOME observations, from a very limited perspective. You know, the old “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”? I also have a thin skin, and readily admit I couldn’t handle all the upbraidings and criticisms that would (rightly?) be aimed at me. I’m very opinionated about a lot of stuff, but perhaps not well equipped to deal with differing opinions, especially when demands are — justifiably — made to bell the cat, which I can’t.

You’re welcome to use anything you think is of value that I’ve written, and you don’t need to mention my name specifically to glean the important issues and ideas and get them out there. If anything is of value, just throw out there what’s needed or calculated to spark thought and ideas; that would be enough.

A revolution with no follow-up is analogous to shooting oneself in the foot (you have a deadly weapon, it makes a great deal of noise, and inflicts crippling pain, but . . . !); that is what I meant to point out.

I want the revolution because of the promise of the follow-up, but I see nowhere anyone addressing the follow-up, only of somehow doing the revolting.

————–

NORMAN:

Cathy, you’ve given me some good things to think about, I’m excited about turning this into an article for everyone to read. I’ll let you know when I’m finished. Now that the semester is over, I’ll have a little more time to mess with this. Again, thanks for your participation here, I’m so glad you’ve chosen to spend your time with us!

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Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Discussion of Christian Charity

Many Christians believe that paying taxes is fulfilling the Biblical command to show compassion to the poor. We just need to “render to Caesar” and Caesar will do the right thing. Is this a valid conclusion?

Suppose you are walking down the street, and somebody holds you up for your wallet. But, instead of running off with it, he then distributes it to some poor people who have been following along with him. “There you go,” he says to you, as he hands back your wallet, “You’ve done your charity this week. I’ve kept some for my ‘fee,’ no run along. I’ll be back next week to do this again.”

Does that sound like benevolence to you? No? Well guess what, that’s exactly what the government is doing. A thief does not become justified if he gives what he stole to the homeless man as he runs off. He’s still a thief!

Actually, what the government does is worse…

Government benevolence is notoriously inefficient. Statistics show that for every dollar the government uses in a “benevolent way,” only 25 cents actually is used to “help” those in need (stats from Mary Ruwart’s Healing Our World). Back to the anecdote above, that “fee” of his is 75% of the initial amount. Contrast this to private charity, where on average 75 cents out of every dollar gets to those in need. Private charity is three times more effective at using resources than government!

Many people argue that if the government wasn’t “doing charity,” then there wouldn’t be enough private charity to meet the needs of people. On the contrary, people primarily give out of their prosperity (although we Christians are called to give regardless because we realize how prosperous we really are). In fact, in the so-called “Decade of Greed” in the 1980s, charitable giving was higher than ever before! (See Bob Murphy’s Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism). Consequently, we can expect that eliminating government “charity” will undoubtedly help more people in the long run than by retaining these inefficient and immoral programs!

Moreover, government charity, particularly welfarism, breeds idleness and delinquency, vices which Christians should avoid like the plague. 2 Thessalonians 3 says: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat. We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat.”

Private charity works. Unlike the government, which uses charity to build a class of people dependent on them and thereby win their votes again and again, private charities are interested in truly helping those in their time of need. They want to build people up, not make them dependent. Their service is derived from love of neighbor, not love of power.

The government is NOT a benevolent institution. Leave that to the church and other private organizations.

Thanks to Chris Bevis for inspiring this installment. Make sure to read his guest post on LCC about Rendering to Caesar.

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Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

10 Things I Hate About Taxes #7: Caesar’s Benevolence