Archive for conservatism
Disciple of Liberty by Jason Rink
Posted by: | CommentsBook review of Disciple of Liberty: Seven Priorities of a Christian Patriot by Jason Rink. The Liberty Voice: Ohio. 145 pages. Retail: $14.95.
In the world of literature on liberty, books fall into three distinct categories. First are the books for experts scholars, deeper works that address high level concepts, social or economic theory, and philosophical ideas. Next are the books for the informed reader, those that have a working knowledge of libertarian ideas and seek to improve one’s understanding of the philosophy of liberty. Finally, there are books for those just starting their journey in liberty, those who have little knowledge of economics or libertarian theory. Jason Rink’s Disciple of Liberty falls into the latter category, and it fills a particularly useful void in libertarian literature: an easily accessible explication of liberty to the Christian newcomer, from the Tea Party proponent to the disillusioned conservative or liberal.
Rink’s key point, made very early in the book, is that Christians do not need to wonder if it is appropriate or biblical to get involved in politics to defend liberty. On the contrary, it is good and right to become informed and take a stand for what is just, good, and right, we ought to get involved in some way. One cannot simply look at Romans 13 and say that “obeying the powers that be” is all we should do. For those “on the fence,” Rink says to get on board.
But Rink does not simply tell us “just do something, anything!” without a care for what we stand for. “Just get out and vote!” is not a compelling message at all. Rather, he takes the minarchist, constitutionalist position, and defends it wholeheartedly. Rink identifies seven priority areas to which Christians should pay special attention:
- Define the limits of authority – The government cannot, and should not, have unlimited power. Limits must be clear and precise.
- Demand fidelity to the Constitution – The limits of authority for the United States Federal Government are found in the Constitution, period. We should continually demand that representatives follow it.
- Defend liberty for all people – If we expect to have liberty, we need to defend liberty even for people with whom we disagree with their choices. This is a difficult, yet absolutely essential element part of our way of life. Rink quotes Thomas Paine:
“He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”
- Despise debt – We know that individually we cannot spend more than we make; it is unsustainable and irresponsible. The same should be true of the government. No more can they be allowed to spend like a drunken sailor. And this isn’t even about welfare programs either, which account for a small fraction of total government spending. Rather, we must oppose spending on everything that is unconstitutional, from the FCC to the military-industrial complex.
- Demand honest money – The US Federal Reserve and it’s fiat monetary system is fraudulent, backed by nothing but empty promises. A return to the gold standard should be at the top of our priorities, for it is the ultimate check against runaway spending by the State.
- Desire peace with all nations – A Christian is called to love his enemies, not bomb them. We need to understand the history of our current wars in the Middle East and demand that the government cease interventionism.
- Disciple others in liberty – It is time to get involved in the fight for freedom, and we all can play an important role.
Disciple of Liberty has many commendable strengths. The book’s length, about 100 pages long plus reprints of the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, is very appropriate for a reader who is not ready to tackle a tome about libertarianism quite yet. It is fast paced and lively, yet gently brings the reader to see from a different point of view. The seven principles he outlines are really good, all are worth understanding in detail. Striking a balance between length and depth of material is quite a challenge. Overall, Jason Rink has put together an interesting and useful book that can help Christian newcomers to libertarian thinking grasp some fundamental ideas about liberty.
However, there are a few things in the book (or not in the book) that I don’t like. For one thing, the sources and bibliography are surprisingly short. A bit more along the lines of what to read next would have been nice. If I may be so bold, I’d recommend Rothbard’s For a New Liberty and Ron Paul’s Revolution: A Manifesto (which, I should note, was mentioned in the Bibliography).
Another minor point of contention I have with the book is its interpretation of Romans 13, but it is an admittedly debatable topic. Of course, Rink easily disproves the “you just have to obey the government” line that so many evangelicals take. He take’s Chuck Baldwin’s approach, which emphasizes that our contemporary “powers that be” are the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, whereas my own approach is quite a bit different. Detailed exegesis, though, is difficult to distill when you are trying to reign in the length of a book, so it is understandable. But following on this point, overall I have certain doubts about making Constitutionalism our prime directive. Personally, I see the Constitution as a bludgeon or mirror, something we can use to say the Federal Government is so terrible that it does not even follow its own rules and never has. We need to remind people that government is aggression, and that our “resistance” against aggression is to expose such truth without apology. Now, Jason does mention each of these things in the book, so this is just the hard-core anarcho-capitalist in me talking. In no way am I downplaying Jason’s work.
As a personal friend of Jason now, I can honestly say that I am very proud of what he’s done despite my reservations on a few points. This is a great book for liberals, conservatives, or Tea Party supporters, who are all in need of some perspective about what liberty should mean to us. I think that it would be great to give to your Christian parents, relatives, or friends who are fed up with the Federal Government and are looking for an alternative. I encourage you to use Disciple of Liberty to strengthen your own resolve and plant new seeds of liberty in Christian hearts.
Visit Jason Rink at www.jasonrink.com. Buy his book here.
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Tags: christian libertarian, Christianity, conservatism, constitution, liberalism, libertarianism, Tea Party, theology, war
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Mission Accomplished, Obama-Style
Posted by: | CommentsOn January 23, 2009 a two-day-inaugurated President Obama ordered his first murder of Iraqis with Predator drones. Now, exactly sixteen months past his inauguration, Barack Obama has failed to live up to one of the simplest measurable campaign promises I can imagine, a complete pullout of Iraq in sixteen months. We haven’t seen one brigade returned home without another taking its place, in fact nearly all aspects of the Federal Government’s Middle East interventions continue to increase in scope. I might have been a little more understanding if something had happened in the right direction, but pretty much all I can say that is positive is that we haven’t invaded Iran – yet. (Knock on wood.)
So yes, congratulations are in order…
Congratulations, President Obama, for proving yourself time and again that you are just Bush 2.0 (or is it 3.0).
Congratulations, conservative warmongers, for towing the party line and keeping this war going.
Congratulations, supposedly anti-war liberals, for believing the lie hook, line, and sinker, and supporting an immoral President through thick and thin.
Congratulations, establishment media, for continuing to shill for the State as thousands upon thousands of innocents suffer. Why should it take an independent media organization to expose what you should have been saying from the beginning?
Congratulations, Christian conservatives, for selling out to a political party where you don’t even get any positive influence in return, and using whatever influence you do have to promote continued murder. Seriously, you’re embarrassing. Stop it.
Okay enough with the sarcasm. You know who should get real congrats? Those who have been consistently anti-war since the beginning of the 21st century, no matter their political stripe. Those such as Lew Rockwell, Justin Raimondo, Laurence Vance, Ron Paul, heck even Cindy Sheehan have stayed true to consistent morality and opposed what is plainly an immoral, unjust, and unrighteous war.
Stay the course, friends. We must continue to oppose evil and call it by its name. Do not despair, for truth and justice prevail in the end.
(Hat tip to J.H. Huebert for the photo.)
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Tags: Afghanistan, conservatism, ethics, iraq, morality, Obama, war, war on terror
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How Libertarian Are You?
Posted by: | CommentsMy friend Wes at The Humble Libertarian put together a neat list of quizzes that you can take on the internet to gauge where you fall in the political spectrum. He wrote a second post with his results for each quiz, and I thought it would be fun to do the same. A few of these I have taken before, but why not do it again?
1. The World’s Smallest Political Quiz
(take this quiz here)
My result:
The WSPQ is a great way to reach out to non-libertarians because of it clear, non-controversial language. It’s a great tool for general libertarian ideas. Wes also points out that the Advocates for Self-Government (who sponsor this quiz) defines a libertarian as those who “support maximum liberty in both personal and economic matters. They advocate a much smaller government; one that is limited to protecting individuals from coercion and violence. Libertarians tend to embrace individual responsibility, oppose government bureaucracy and taxes, promote private charity, tolerate diverse lifestyles, support the free market, and defend civil liberties.”
2. Nolan Chart Survey
(take this quiz here)
This quiz was created by David Nolan, one of the original founders of the Libertarian Party. It’s pretty similar to the World’s Smallest Political Quiz, but with more elaborated language. My result:
“Your answers suggest that you are a libertarian. The yellow star shows more precisely where you fall within the libertarian region of the Nolan chart.”
3. Libertarian Purity Test
(take this quiz here)
This “purity” test was created by Bryan Caplan. It’s 64 questions long and thus no trivial feat to finish.
My result: 154 points. Here’s what that means according to Caplan…
131-159 points: You are nearly a perfect libertarian, with a tiny number of blind spots. Think about them, then take the test over again. On the other hand, if you scored this high, you probably have a good libertarian objection to my suggested libertarian answer. 
… and actually I do have a couple of good libertarian objections. The two questions I am sure I answered with which Mr. Caplan would disagree are school voucher programs and “vigilante justice” permissibility. I sincerely believe that voucher programs are just another way for the government to subversively control education, and thus I cannot condone such programs. Regarding so-called “vigilante justice,” I think that this question is just too ambiguous for me to say yes. But hey, on another day I might change my mind… Nevertheless, this is a pretty fun quiz because it’s quite radical overall.
4. "Yet Another Libertarian Quiz"
(take this quiz here)
I did not really like this quiz, because the questions are unnecessarily vague. Incidentally, I think I ended up almost in exactly the same place as Wes. Furthermore, the writer’s utilitarian bent clearly shows through, and in some cases I think I can detect views of his which are in conflict with his own goals.
Total Inefficiency: 57%
What it means: A high inefficiency score indicates that you favor policies that make people more unhappy than they could be otherwise.
Your score breaks down as follows:
Authoritarian: 10%
What it means: A high score under authoritarian indicates that you advocate policies that inefficiently restrict the rights of individual people, placing these rights under government control instead. You believe that in many cases the government knows better than individuals what is good for them.
Anarchic: 80%
What it means: A high score under anarchic indicates that you are probably a stereotypical extremist libertarian. You believe that people ought to be inefficiently within their rights to perform certain actions, even if those actions make others worse off without compensation. You have arbitrarily selected certain behaviors as unquestionable natural rights and the impact they have
on people who disagree is of no consequence.
5. Political Ideology Quiz
(take this quiz here)
This quiz is actually pretty good overall; at the very least it will make you think about where you fall along the rating system for a particular statement with which you will choose either to agree or disagree along a spectrum. My result was pretty evenly either anarchist/libertarian. There shouldn’t be much of a difference between the two, but whatever…
You Scored as Anarchism
Who needs the State? Not you, it seems. You are an anarchist. Go forth and start the revolution of the crazy wild people. Then sit around the fire and wish there were still some doctors.
Anarchism 93%
Libertarian 83%
Republican 40%
Democrat 23%
Fascist 13%
Socialism 3%
6. "What Kind of Libertarian Are You?" Quiz
(take this quiz here)
Again, this is a pretty good quiz. My result:
You Scored as Anarcho-capitalist
Anarcho-capitalists are libertarians who oppose the state entirely and propose to have a free market in the provision of security and arbitration. The term anarcho-capitalism derives from Murray Rothbard to describe a stateless society based on the principles of laissez-faire or the philosophy in support of such a proposition. Anarcho-capitalists may tend to still associate more with the political right and make use of the political process, unless they are agorists or left-libertarians at the same time.
Anarcho-capitalist 100%
Left-libertarian 75%
Agorist 75%
Minarchist 58%
"Small L" libertarian 50%
Paleo-libertarian 33%
Geo-libertarian 8%
Neo-libertarian 0%
Libertarian socialist 0%
7. "Are You A Libertarian?" Quiz
(take this quiz here)
This isn’t a particularly serious libertarian quiz, but it’s kind of fun. My result: 94%, because I don’t think Milton Friedman is better than Mises or Rothbard.
8. Libertarian or Authoritarian Quiz
(take this quiz here)
My result: “You are a strong libertarian. You believe that the government should be much smaller and that the U.S.A. would be better that way.” Yep…
9. Political Ideology Quiz
(take this quiz here)
I really liked this quiz because of the way you could weight your score based on how much you actually cared about the particular issue in the question. This quiz identified me as a partial-paleo/partial-left libertarian. That’s pretty much an ancap rating in my book, I guess. My result:
10. Political Philosophy Quiz
(take this quiz here)
This quiz is pretty barebones, and some of the questions are a bit vague, but hey it works alright. I think it’s funny that my position is classified as “Pacifist” when really what I am is a “non-interventionist.” My results:
The following are your scores. They are based on a gradual range of 0 to 12. For instance, a Conservative/Progressive score of 3 and 0 will both yield a result of social conservative, yet 0 would be an extreme conservative and 3 a moderate conservative
Conservative/Progressive score: 6
You are a social moderate. You think the progressive movement is overall well meaning, but sometimes it goes too far. On issues like abortion and affirmative action, you see the negatives of both extremes on the issue. You probably value religion, but at the same time you think it should still stay separate from the government
Capitalist Purist/Social Capitalist score: 2
You’re a Capitalist Purist. You believe that the market should be completely free, and that the invisible hand of the market will make sure that the people get what they want and will do it in the most efficient way possible. You believe in small government, less taxes, and more privatization.
Libertarian/Authoritarian score: 2
You are libertarian. You think that the government is making way too many unnecessary laws that are taking away our innate rights. You believe that the government’s job is primarily to protect people from harming other people, but after that they should mind their own business, and if we give the government too much power in controlling our lives, it can lead to fascism.
Pacifist/Militarist score: 0
You’re a Pacifist. You are angered that the United States thinks it should dominate the world through its military force. You think that the only time war is necessary is when we are in direct danger of being attacked. You also believe the US spends way too much of its money on defense, as we can practically cut it in half and still easily defend ourselves, and use that money to fix all our economic problems.
Overall, you would most likely fit into the category of Libertarian
Enjoy playing around with the quizzes!
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Tags: conservatism, economics, fun, government, liberalism, libertarianism, Social Networking
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Fail or Win? – National Review can’t decide
Posted by: | CommentsI found this excerpt from the April 6 National Review issue to be rather ironic:
Obama’s wartime detention policy takes cynicism to new heights. It is not a new policy; it is the Bush administration’s old policy. There are some crumbs to satisfy those in Obama’s hard-Left base who actually believed the hopey-change campaign rhetoric: Detainees won’t be called “enemy combatants” anymore, and the administration purports not to be relying on the commander-in-chief’s inherent constitutional powers to hold them without trial. But we are still going to hold them. The Justice Department explained to a federal court that under the international law of war and Congress’s post-9/11 authorization of military force, the president has unilateral power to imprison anyone he judges to be providing substantial assistance to our terrorist enemies – with no requirement that such persons be apprehended on a traditional battlefield or have committed an act of terrorism. Of course, when Bush took this position, the Left was in froth-flecked rebellion, but now there’s nothing more than some harmless grumbling from the ACLU. Sighs of relief on the national-security Right may be premature, however. By apparently forswearing his constitutional war powers, Obama is betting he can prosecute war under the direction of courts (including international tribunals) and an anti-war Congress. We have our doubts.
This seems inordinately odd to me. Essentially, you could summarize this, from the National Review’s point of view, as “We told you so, Obama!” The detention policy Bush put in place is being kept with some different sugar-coated words. (Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.) One might think that these oh-so-sincere-people about “national security” would be praising Obama for coming to his senses and making the “Right” decision about giving himself limitless power to wage war. They obviously have no problem with this presidential power, but they do have a problem with who has it. Their smug demeanor and blatant disregard for traditional conservative thinking regarding international relations betrays what they really feel.
Indeed, Obama’s wartime detention policy should take cynicism to “new heights” about the possibility of “change” taking place (no surprise there), I just can’t see how National Review should be anything but overjoyed with this result. But it’s National Review, they despise the Left more than the State apparatus that makes the Left dangerous (and, in fact, just as dangerous as the Right). I’m not sure it’s meant to be rational. The “national-security Right” has never been about rationality, but justifying imperialism.
Christians should know from their history better than anyone about being held against their will without provocation. It still happens throughout the world today – in the Middle East, China, and many other areas of the world. How we think it’s “ok” to do the same in the name of freedom is unfathomable, and the results unconscionable.
Editorial cartoon by Terrence Nowicki of This Is Historic Times.
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Tags: conservatism, National Review, Obama, war, war on terror
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The Village Voice and Fear-Hope
Posted by: | CommentsI found out this morning that none other than the Village Voice, an alt-newspaper in New York City, discovered my Fear is the New Hope post. They didn’t seem to like it that much, so much so that I took the first spot on their laundry list of Barackritics:
But having no plan of their own with which to replace Obama’s — except for the traditional Republican miracle cure, tax cuts — they focused on an emotional appeal, claiming that the recession really isn’t anything to get excited about, and that the President was trying to terrorize Americans into supporting his plan. Their cue-card read “Fear,” and rightbloggers big and small scribbled it down:
“Fear is the new hope,” said Libertarian Christians…
I’m listed along with other bloggers such as Big Dog’s Weblog, Sheepdog’s Blog, The Freedomist, Wizbang, American Glob, and Desert Conservative. Seriously? As far as I can tell, all of these guys are hardcore Republicans (any of them are free to correct me if I’m wrong). Now, I’m sure that these bloggers are respectable fellows, but to conflate our ideologies pretty much means you either (a) don’t know what a libertarian is, (b) don’t know what right-wing means, or (c) didn’t read what I wrote. Now, I’m assuming that Village Voice is full of respectable fellows as well, so I assumed option (b) and left the following comment on their article. Hopefully they will allow it to be seen after moderation. So, here we go then, dear Village Voice…
To clarify: I am not a “right-wing blogger.” You guys seem to think that someone who is against Obama’s policies must by definition be “right-wing.” But on the contrary, historically I have criticized the right just as much as the left. That’s why the website is called *Libertarian* Christians.
In fact, if you scroll down a little in my article, you’ll note how I compare the fear-mongering of Obama to the fear-mongering of Bush. How could I be a right-wing blogger and say this stuff?<
And moreover, it is entirely inaccurate that neither I nor my fellow libertarians have offered legitimate solutions to the fiscal crisis. You can look through my writings on economics, or you can listen to Ron Paul, or you can read a host of articles on Mises.org to find plenty of ideas for how to make the pain of the recession last for the least amount of time.
But I do thank you for the link. Good day and God bless. :-)
~Norman
http://libertarianchristians.com/
Link to my original article:
http://libertarianchristians.com/2009/02/08/fear-is-the-new-hope/
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Tags: bailouts, capitalism, conservatism, Obama
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Norman is the creator and primary writer for LCC. Learn a little bit about him in the