(HT Chris Bevis for the title of this post.)

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

“Is Saul also among the prophets?” or, the Rush Limbaugh flip-flop

The lies about Ron Paul uttered by the media, the Republican Party, the political establishment, conservative talk show hosts, and rank and file Republicans and conservatives who blindly parrot their leaders, and even some libertarians are legion. However, when it comes to Christian armchair warriors, Christian Coalition moralists, evangelical warvangelicals, Catholic just war theorists, reich-wing Christian nationalists, theocon Values Voters, imperial Christians, Red-State Christian fascists, God and country Christian bumpkins, and other Religious Rightists that have no problem draping the cross of Christ with the American flag, there are basically five lies that are continually told about Congressman Paul, all recycled from the last time he ran for president.

Lie number one: Ron Paul is not pro-life. That is, he doesn’t support a federal law or constitutional amendment banning abortion since that is entirely up to the states.

The subject of abortion is one that Ron Paul is uniquely qualified to talk about. In addition to being a member of Congress, Ron Paul is a physician specializing in obstetrics and gynecology who has delivered over 4,000 babies. In forty years of medical practice, Dr. Paul says, "I never once considered performing an abortion, nor did I ever find abortion necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman." He believes "beyond a doubt that a fetus is a human life deserving of legal protection, and that the right to life is the foundation of any moral society." But unlike many Republicans in Congress, Representative Paul also believes in consistently and strictly following the Constitution in all matters. Therefore, as he simply states:

Under the 9th and 10th amendments, all authority over matters not specifically addressed in the Constitution remains with state legislatures. Therefore the federal government has no authority whatsoever to involve itself in the abortion issue. So while Roe v. Wade is invalid, a federal law banning abortion across all 50 states would be equally invalid.

Dr. Paul is also consistently pro-life. Many pro-life Religious Rightists are cheerleaders for the killing of innocents outside of the womb in senseless foreign wars. Ron Paul believes in the sanctity of all human life.

Lie number two: Ron Paul supports drug use. That is, he doesn’t support the unconstitutional federal war on drugs.

The $41 billion a year war on drugs is a failure in every respect. It has reduced neither the demand for nor the availability of drugs. It has failed to keep drugs away from kids and addicts. It has made criminals out otherwise law-abiding Americans – over 1.5 million Americans are arrested on drug charges every year, with almost half of those arrests being just for possession of marijuana. The war on drugs encourages violence, unnecessarily swells the prison population with non-violent offenders, destroys civil liberties, attacks personal and financial privacy, and corrupts and militarizes the police. But not only do the costs of the drug war greatly exceed its benefits, it is clearly an unconstitutional activity of the federal government. As a physician, Dr. Paul knows full well the harmful effects of illicit drug use. But he also recognizes the dangers to liberty, property, and limited government that the war on drugs poses. It is perplexing and hypocritical that Religious Rightists don’t likewise support a war on alcohol since every negative thing – and more – that could be said about drug abuse could also be said about alcohol abuse.

Lie number three: Ron Paul is not pro-Israel. That is, he doesn’t support looting the American taxpayers and giving the money to a foreign government.

Since World War II, the U.S. government has dispensed hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign aid in a variety of forms to over 150 countries. Foreign aid is further camouflaged as U.S. support for the UN, IMF, World Bank, and other globalist organizations. Foreign aid now costs the American taxpayer over $40 billion a year. Egypt received over $1.5 billion in foreign aid last year. Israel received over twice as much. Since their peace accord in 1979, Egypt and Israel have been the top two recipients of U.S. foreign aid, accounting for about one-third of all foreign aid spending. Foreign aid is really foreign government aid that enriches the leaders of corrupt regimes and their privileged contractors. Foreign aid further entrenches the U.S. government bureaucracy, increases the power of the state, fosters dependency on U.S. largesse, and lines the pockets of U.S. corporations whose products are bought with foreign aid money. Following the advice of Thomas Jefferson, who advocated "honest friendship with all nations" and "entangling alliances with none," Representative Paul sees neutrality as the best foreign policy for the United States: "The real, pro-US solution to the problems in the Middle East is for us to end all foreign aid, stop arming foreign countries, encourage peaceful diplomatic resolutions to conflicts, and disengage militarily."

Lie number four: Ron Paul is weak on defense. That is, he doesn’t support perpetual, senseless, and immoral foreign wars.

Most of U.S. military spending is not for defense, but for offense. Most of what the military does is outside of the country and in some cases thousands of miles away: providing disaster relief, dispensing humanitarian aid, supplying peacekeepers, enforcing UN resolutions, nation building, spreading goodwill, launching preemptive strikes, establishing democracy, changing regimes, assassinating people, training armies, advising armies, rebuilding infrastructure, reviving public services, opening markets, maintaining no-fly zones, occupying countries, and, of course, fighting foreign wars. The proper use of the military – as envisioned by Ron Paul – is in defending the United States, not defending other countries, and certainly not bombing, invading, or occupying them. Using the military for any other purpose than the actual defense of the United States – its land, its shores, its skies, its coasts, its borders – perverts the purpose of the military. The United States is not and cannot be the world’s policeman.

Lie number five: Ron Paul is an isolationist. That is, he doesn’t support a global empire with 1,000 foreign military bases and troops stationed in 150 countries.

The Department of Defense has more than 500,000 facilities on more than 5,500 sites totaling approximately 29 million acres. There are over 300,000 U.S. troops in foreign countries – plus over 100,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus tens of thousands of contractors. The word isolationist is a pejorative term of intimidation used to stifle debate over foreign policy. A noninterventionist foreign policy – like that espoused by Ron Paul – is a foreign policy is a policy of peace, diplomacy, and neutrality that includes trade, cultural exchanges, travel, immigration and emigration, and foreign investment. No invasions, threats, sanctions, embargoes, commitments, meddling, entangling alliances, or troops and bases on foreign soil.

So why the lies?

Why all the lies about a candidate who is and has always been really pro-life, pro-family, pro-religion, pro-family values, pro-religious liberty, pro-gun, pro-Constitution, pro-fiscal conservatism, pro-free market, pro-sound money, pro-defense, pro-liberty, pro-peace, pro-privacy, and pro-property. Why all the lies about a candidate who is and has always been really anti-UN, anti-tax increases, anti-taxes, anti-abortion, anti-gun control, anti-unconstitutional government spending, anti-birthright citizenship, anti-amnesty, anti-New World Order, anti-foreign aid, anti-government subsidies, anti-foreign wars, anti-welfare, anti-socialized medicine, anti congressional pay raises, anti-congressional pensions, anti-government-paid junkets, and anti-centralization of power in the federal government.

I say really because Ron Paul is and has always been for and against these things on a philosophical level. He doesn’t just say he is for or against these things to get elected. He doesn’t change his message depending on the crowd he’s addressing. He has a track record of consistency unmatched by anyone who has ever been in Congress or run for president. Why would any member of the Religious Right not embrace Ron Paul as their ideal candidate even as they run from the current crop of Republican presidential candidates?

So why the lies?

I think they are due in a great measure to ignorance: ignorance of the Constitution, ignorance of federalism, ignorance of U.S. foreign policy, ignorance of the U.S. government, ignorance of American history, ignorance of the Republican Party, ignorance of the Bible, ignorance of anything but what is heard on Fox News, ignorance of anything but what is uttered by conservative talk radio show hosts, ignorance of anything but the propaganda that comes out of many church pulpits. Unfortunately, however, much of this ignorance is willful and complacent.

But not all Religious Rightists are ignorant. Some are just deliberate apologists for the state, its leaders, its military, its wars, and its foreign policy. If they were honest, then they would have to say that they believe in the centralization of power in Washington DC, in a police state that inconsistently criminalizes peaceful behavior, in swearing allegiance to a foreign government and looting other taxpayers that don’t share their allegiance, in endless foreign wars and military interventions, and in maintaining an empire of troops and bases around the world and meddling in the affairs of other countries.

The last time Dr. Paul ran for president, I concluded that he would not be the candidate of choice of the Religious Right because they love centralization more than federalism, political power more than liberty, war more than peace, politicians more than principles, faith-based socialism more than the free market, and the state more than God Almighty. The Religious Right’s embrace of candidates like Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann and non-candidates like Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee leads me now to the same conclusion.

Originally published on LewRockwell.com on October 6, 2011.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Five Lies of the Religious Right About Ron Paul

Many Christian conservatives disapprove of Christian libertarians because most libertarians support getting the government’s nose out of issues related to sex (such as prostitution and homosexuality). How does a Christian who accepts libertarianism respond to that?

This issue has been addressed on LCC in a few places, including the FAQ – make sure to check those out. However, let’s take this opportunity to make an important point about morality and the use of force.

Everything a libertarian thinks a government should do (or not do) flows out of our understanding of property rights. First, you own yourself, insofar as other human beings do not have better claim to it (God obviously becomes the final arbiter in this regression, but this is beside the point for now). As such, you have the right to use your body however you choose, so long as you do not initiate force against others either physically or through fraud.

It generally is reasonable to most people that if someone else is doing something of which you disapprove but is not aggressive in nature, then you do not have the right to initiate force to stop him. This clearly follows from the non-aggression principle stated above. However, many of these same people think that it’s alright to use the government to stop activity of which they disapprove. All it takes is a new law.

In contrast, libertarians say that this is an illegitimate use of force. If I, as an individual, do not have the right to force people to stop action X (because action X is not aggressive in nature), then neither does a group of people, and neither does a government. Governments do not have the right to regulate non-aggressive behavior.

So the first question is, why should the above principles change when it comes to sex? I disapprove of prostitution as much as the next fellow, but at least prostitution is consensual as opposed to a government that sustains itself on institutionalized violence. We don’t think that a government should get involved in family affairs, why then would we ever want them involved in monitoring bedroom activity?

Instead of using our time and energy to get the government to prohibit activity like prostitution, or drugs, or pornography, or drinking, or whatever, which invariably leads to black markets and escalation of violence and a police state, why not instead build up the Kingdom of God through the church?

Have a question you’d like to ask? Submit yours here.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Governments cannot regulate personal relationships

Carl Trueman is confused, but not as confused as his book’s title and subtitle indicate. He is trying to describe with one term both his political and religious viewpoint.

It is rare that an author clearly states his thesis upfront instead of making you wade through the whole book wondering just what it is the author is trying to prove. Although it is not clear from the book’s title or subtitle, Trueman’s thesis, which he states in different forms in his acknowledgments and his introduction, makes it clear that he is a religious conservative and a political liberal:

Religious conservatism does not demand unconditional political conservatism.

Conservative Christianity does not require conservative politics or conservative cultural agendas.

The author is living proof that his thesis is true. As am I. But that is where our similarities end. Trueman fears that his book will merely confirm that he is a “bleeding-heart liberal,” that it is just “a tract for the Left,” and that it is “little more than the special pleading of a confused political liberal.” After reading the book I must say that his fears are justified. But what did he expect?

Trueman favors gun control and nationalized health care (although he is quick to point out that he is “not a socialist”). He holds dear as important political issues poverty, sanitation, housing, unemployment, and hunger. He also has “concern for the environment.” He believes the government “has a role to play in health care and helping the poor.” He disdains capitalism and feels that “pure private enterprise is not adequate for meeting all of society’s needs.”

Yet, he finds himself “politically homeless, restless, and disenchanted.” This is because, although “a man of the left,” Trueman, as a theological conservative, is pro-life and anti-gay marriage. No wonder he feels that any of the secular Left reading the book will find him “woefully inconsistent.”

So why am I, a theological conservative and a hardcore libertarian, even bothering to review a book that I find so muddled and moronic that I have to say is not worth reading?

One, Trueman makes some good points about both the Right and the Left that I feel are worth mentioning. And two, Trueman makes some bad points about Christianity and capitalism and Christianity and politics that I also feel are worth mentioning.

Let me first give some brief information about the author and his book.

Trueman is originally from Great Britain. He did not move to the United States until 2001. He was a member of the British Conservative Party in the mid-1980s, but became disillusioned and made a “leftward turn.” He is now the vice president of academics and professor of historical theology and church history at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. This is a conservative seminary that was founded by J. Gresham Machen. Trueman holds a Ph.D. in church history from Aberdeen University.

Trueman’s book, Republocrat: Confessions of a Liberal Conservative, is a small book of 110 pages that takes longer to digest than to read. It contains six chapters. The first chapter, with the catchy title of “Left Behind,” is a critique of the Left. Chapter 2 is about the secularization of American Christianity. Chapter 3 is a critique of Fox News. Chapter 4 is a critique of Max Weber and capitalism. Chapter 5 is about politics. Chapter 6 is a “Concluding Unpolitical Postscript.” The book also contains an introduction by the author and a foreword by a politically conservative colleague who recounts how, when visiting the grave of Karl Marx with the author, he was careful to stand to the right of the bust of Marx while Trueman stood to the left.

In his critique of the Right, Trueman correctly criticizes the idea that America should be identified with God’s special people. He cautions against the temptation for the “dominant nation at any point in world history to identify its mission with the mission of God.” This “must be resisted at all costs.” In this context, he specifically mentions The American Patriot’s Bible, a nationalistic and militaristic Bible published recently that I have negatively reviewed here. Trueman terms one of the claims in this Bible’s promotional video “puerile, blasphemous nonsense.” Even worse though is the painting One Nation Under God, which portrays Jesus holding the Constitution while surrounded by deists Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. “To include them pictorially,” says Trueman, “in some nostalgic plea for a Christian nation is historically ignorant, blasphemous, and, quite frankly, risible.”

Trueman has nothing good to say about Fox News, the station where “any dissent from the most robust conservative philosophy was seen as a sign of basic moral failure.” He especially focuses on the shortcomings of Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, and Fox’s owner, Rupert Murdoch. I like Trueman’s suggestion that “when it comes to listening to the news; Christians should be eclectic in their approach and not depend merely on those pundits who simply confirm their view of the world.”

Trueman has a good eye for the hypocrisy of the Right, like this insight: “While the Christian Right is intolerant of any personal peccadillo on the part of liberals, it is often very forgiving of the private failings of its heroes.” The description of John McCain and Sarah Palin as mavericks he finds “clearly absurd.” And of good ol’ boy George W. Bush, there is “no one more elite.” Trueman points out the inconsistency of the Right holding “a deep suspicion of the federal government in a domestic context,” but decrying as “unpatriotic and un-American” any criticism of the government when it invades some foreign country. On the issue of abortion, Trueman astutely perceives that “it seems to be something the Right often uses as little more than a means to drum up cheap votes for its candidates.” He questions the real commitment of Bush, McCain, and the Republican Party to the pro-life cause.

As a political liberal himself, Trueman’s critique of the Left is naturally limited. As mentioned previously, our author deviates from the Left on the issues of abortion and gay marriage. He believes that the Left has been hijacked by identity politics. When the Left made gay rights and abortion touchstone issues, “those of us with strong religious convictions on these matters found ourselves essentially alienated from the parties to which our allegiance would naturally be given.” In advocating gay rights, “the Left frequently finds itself opposed to the values of the very people it was originally designed to help.” On abortion, Trueman wonders “how many on the Left have ever taken the time to address the issue of how the right to abortion became so inextricably linked to the notion of women’s rights.” He thinks that abortion “would seem to be a classic cause for the Left” since the Left “prides itself on speaking up for the oppressed, especially for those who cannot speak up for themselves.” He considers it “quite stunning” that a rhetorical connection has been forged “between the oppression of women and the denial of on-demand abortion.”

There are some other insights in the book as well. Trueman has some good remarks on the Manichaean nature of American politics. He is especially perplexed that Christians “who have a great capacity for subtle thinking in matters of theology seem to prefer to think in terms of very straightforward, black-and-white, if not Manichaean, categories when it comes to politics.”

Trueman has issues, not just with Max Weber’s understanding of the “affinity between Protestantism and the capitalist ethic,” but with capitalism itself. Christians should be wary of capitalism because:

• it promotes a view of life rooted in material accumulation;
• it can tend to drive all social relations and values to being determined by cash transactions;
• and when given spiritual significance, it can become something that looks a little too much like the prosperity gospel.

Trueman’s strained attempt to say that a capitalistic society is conducive to euthanasia and abortion is ludicrous. Oh, capitalism doesn’t necessarily lead to euthanasia, “but it creates one of the kinds of societies where such discussion might well take place.” Well, some ancient pagan cultures didn’t just discuss human sacrifice; they practiced it. They certainly had no idea what capitalism was. I think rather that the opposite of what Trueman says is true. He also maintains that “access to abortion” is “not unconnected” to capitalism. I suppose this is why there were so many abortions in the Soviet Union – under communism.

Yet, according to our author, who, you will remember, is “not a socialist,” there is “no alternative out there.” Capitalism “has its great benefits” and “brings much good in its wake, not least the creation of wealth and the facilitation of social mobility.” Clearly, Trueman is confused about capitalism.

On capitalism from a secular perspective, see my brief review of Robert P. Murphy’s The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism and Thomas J. DiLorenzo’s How Capitalism Saved America. On capitalism from a Christian perspective, see my The Myth of the Just Price.

But in addition to Trueman’s bad points about Christianity and capitalism, there are his remarks about Christianity and politics.

Trueman believes it is part of the Christian’s “civic duty” to vote even as they “feel pain when they mark the relevant box, knowing the trade-offs they are having to make as they do so, and how their action belies the complexity of reality.”

But I don’t know why Trueman thinks Christians should feel pain or be making trade-offs when they vote since he believes that, apart from abortion, there are no issues upon which Christians can have opinions shaped by Scripture:

I believe that on certain issues there is no obviously “Christian” position. I am inclined to include among such issues the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the appropriateness of trade unions, rates of direct and indirect taxation, etc. To make any of these things acid tests of Christian orthodoxy is to go well beyond anything the Bible teachers or that the church has felt it necessary to define over the two thousand years of its existence.

It is not obvious to me from reading Scripture that God really cares one way or the other about how health care is delivered. . . . I would suggest it means that believers should consider heath care a good thing and want to see as many people helped by it as possible. How that is done, to what extent the state is involved, etc., are legitimate subjects for debate and not something that should divide Christians as Christians.

Beyond abortion, there are a whole host of issues on which the Christian pundits have strong opinions, from gun control to defense spending to financial regulation to education. The problem is, of course, that whether there is a distinctly biblical position on these matters that can thus be pressed on the church is debatable.

As Christians, we should be able to disagree vigorously on, say gun control.

If there are no “Christian” positions on these issues – all of which involve theft and/or violence by the state – then there are no “Christian” positions on any issues and the Bible is completely irrelevant to modern life.

For a book that was written because of the author’s “belief that the evangelical church in America is in danger of alienating a significant section of its people, particularly younger people, through too tight a connection between conservative party politics and Christian fidelity,” it contains surprisingly few references to Scripture. I only count five, and most of them are on one page (p. 71). Trueman doesn’t actually quote any Scripture, and neither does he give any real references (book, chapter, & verse). He merely refers to 2 Corinthians 1, the Book of Acts, 2 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 1 & 2, and Ecclesiastes 2.

I think I see Trueman’s political problem. He makes this statement on page 81: “There does not appear to be a grand, unifying theory in politics that allows all these areas to be tied together into one coherent and necessary whole.” The grand, unifying theory that Trueman overlooks is, of course, libertarianism. Our author does mention libertarianism twice, but each time with a negative connotation. Once he remarks that having a commitment to untrammeled markets leads toward “a form of libertarianism – economic at the outset but profoundly moral in the long run.” Then, in his conclusion, Trueman talks about the Right shifting “in a more socially and morally libertarian direction.” So not only is Trueman confused about capitalism, he is confused about libertarianism as well. I would refer him to my recent ASC lecture, “Is Libertarianism Compatible with Religion?”

Carl Trueman may be a liberal conservative, but he is a liberal conservative statist.

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Article originally published on LewRockwell.com on June 17, 2011.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Oxymoronic, or just moronic?

In his new book Decision Points, former president George W. Bush complains about a 2004 tape by Osama bin Laden "mocking my response to 9/11 in the Florida classroom." What really upset Bush was that "it sounded like he was plagiarizing Michael Moore."

Moore is the documentary filmmaker and liberal political commentator who harshly criticized Bush in his 2004 film Fahrenheit 9/11, which he wrote, directed, produced, and stared in. As Lew Rockwell wrote about the film:

The movie decries the warmongering of the Bush administration, exposes the fraudulence of his excuses for invading and crushing Iraq, unearths the unseemly ties between the Bush regime and big oil and the Saudis, and blasts the Bush regime for its egregious violations of civil liberties and massive pillaging of the American taxpayer on behalf of the merchants of death.

This, of course, does not mean that Lew Rockwell or I endorse anything else that Michael Moore has ever done.

Like Mr. Rockwell, I am no fan of Michael Moore. He is a radical liberal, a union propagandist, a socialist, a gun grabber, an economic ignoramus, and a hypocrite who criticizes capitalism and poses as a spokesman of the working class while living an upscale life, sending his daughter to an elite private school, and boasting of his wealth. I even agree with Bush that Moore is a "slimeball."

But there is one thing Michael Moore is right about.

In a recent open letter to Juan Williams regarding his firing by NPR, Moore used the courtroom statements of the Times Square car bomber Faisal Shahzad to explain why many in the Muslim World hate us. Moore previously wrote an open letter to Bush on the eve of the Iraq war and to Obama about the war in Afghanistan.

Here is what Moore quotes Shahzad as saying at his June 21, 2010, appearance in the Federal District Court in Manhattan where he pleaded guilty to a ten-count indictment:

I want to plead guilty, and I’m going to plead guilty 100 times over, because until the hour the U.S. pulls its forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, and stops the drone strikes in Somalia and Yemen and in Pakistan, and stops the occupation of Muslim lands, and stops killing the Muslims, and stops reporting the Muslims to its government, we will be attacking U.S., and I plead guilty to that.

And here is what Moore quotes Shahzad as saying on October 5, 2010, when he was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole:

[Saladin] liberated Muslim lands … And that’s what we Muslims are trying do, because you’re occupying Iraq and Afghanistan… So, the past nine years the war with Muslims has achieved nothing for the U.S., except for it has waken up the Muslims for Islam. We are only Muslims trying to defend our people, honor, and land. But if you call us terrorists for doing that, then we are proud terrorists, and we will keep on terrorizing until you leave our land and people at peace.

The first thing to be determined is whether Moore accurately quotes Shahzad. In the court transcript from June 21, "100 times over" appears as "a hundred times forward." The only other difference between Moore and the official transcript is a few commas. In defense of Moore I should point out that the way he quotes Shahzad is the usual way the quote has been reported. In the court transcript from October 5, we can see that the first and second statements attributed to Shahzad actually come after the third statement. And just to be fair to Shahzad (yes, I know he’s a convicted terrorist, but that doesn’t give us the right to misquote him), here is what he said without the brackets and ellipsis: "He liberated Muslim lands from the Jewish crusade, Christian crusade. And that’s what we Muslims are trying do, because you’re occupying Iraq and Afghanistan." Moore quotes the third statement word perfect. So, what Moore quotes Shahzad as saying is essentially correct.

It is at the close of his short open letter that Moore reaches his conclusion I quoted above: "Terrorists aren’t trying to kill us because they hate our freedom. They’re killing us because we’re in their countries killing them."

So if Moore is right – and I have no doubt that he is – then Islamic terrorists don’t want to detonate bombs in Times Square or blow up U.S.-bound airplanes because we have a bill of rights or because they think Brittany Spears should wear a burqa.

But Michael Moore is not just right; he is by implication giving us the key to declaring the war on terror over: GET OUT. Get U.S. troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Get the CIA out of Yemen and Pakistan. Stop the Predator drone attacks. Cease flying the sorties. I’m not sure about Moore, but I would go even further. Close the overseas bases. Bring all the troops home. Retire as the policeman of the world. Discontinue the foreign wars. Halt the spreading of democracy. Freeze the nation building. End the interventionist foreign policy.

What Moore is saying is not new. The CIA calls it blowback. The Bible calls it reaping what you sow.

The terrible truth is that the war on terror creates terrorists. As the great Glenn Greenwald wrote after Faisal Shahzad entered his guilty plea:

The great contradiction of American foreign policy is that the very actions endlessly rationalized as necessary for combating Terrorism – invading, occupying and bombing other countries, limitless interference in the Muslim world, unconditional support for Israeli aggression, vast civil liberties abridgments such as torture, renditions, due-process-free imprisonments – are the very actions that fuel the anti-American hatred which, as the U.S. Government itself has long recognized, is what causes, fuels and exacerbates the Terrorism we’re ostensibly attempting to address.

But never mind what Glenn Greenwald has to say; never mind what Michael Moore has to say, and never mind what Laurence Vance has to say.

According to a report on strategic communication prepared by the Defense Science Board Task Force, "a federal advisory committee established to provide independent advice to the secretary of defense":

The information campaign – or as some still would have it, "the war of ideas," or the struggle for "hearts and minds" – is important to every war effort. In this war it is an essential objective, because the larger goals of U.S. strategy depend on separating the vast majority of non-violent Muslims from the radical-militant Islamist-Jihadists. But American efforts have not only failed in this respect: they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended.

American direct intervention in the Muslim World has paradoxically elevated the stature of and support for radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single-digits in some Arab societies.

Muslims do not "hate our freedom," but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf states.

Furthermore, in the eyes of Muslims, American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering. U.S. actions appear in contrast to be motivated by ulterior motives, and deliberately controlled in order to best serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim selfdetermination.

Therefore, the dramatic narrative since 9/11 has essentially borne out the entire radical Islamist bill of particulars. American actions and the flow of events have elevated the authority of the Jihadi insurgents and tended to ratify their legitimacy among Muslims. Fighting groups portray themselves as the true defenders of an Ummah (the entire Muslim community) invaded and under attack – to broad public support.

But U.S. foreign policy blunders didn’t just begin on 9/11. As Sheldon Richman recently explained:

Contrary to those who think history began September 11, 2001, U.S. regimes have long pursued policies in the Middle East and Central Asia that have brutalized the Muslim world and cultivated a seething passion for revenge. That explains (though does not excuse) the terrorism against civilians that government officials now say they must spend so much to stop. The threat was created by American policy, and it can be ended by changing that policy to the Washington-Jefferson foreign policy of nonintervention. That will not only make us safer, it also will save the taxpayers money.

Richman ought to know, as he prepared the exhaustive study titled "‘Ancient History’: U.S. Conduct in the Middle East Since World War II and the Folly of Intervention."

The attacks of 9/11 were political acts. They were not undertaken because of our freedoms, way of life, culture, or religion. The problem is our government and its abominable foreign policy. It is because of our foreign policy that our soldiers are needlessly dying in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now, to accept the fact that terrorists want to kill us because we’re in their countries killing them doesn’t mean that those killed on 9/11 deserved to die or that violence is justified or that the Koran is a holy book or that Islam is a religion of peace or that no act of terrorism against the United States would ever take place again if we withdrew our troops.

What it does mean – to anyone except red-state fascists, bloodthirsty conservative chickenhawks, Republican armchair warriors, Religious Right warvangelicals, theocon Values Voters, reich-wing nationalists, God and country Christian bumpkins, and other apologists for the U.S. military and its wars – is that maybe, perhaps, possibly there might be something terribly wrong with U.S. foreign policy, as the heroic Ron Paul has pointed out over and over again.

Michael Moore may be a liberal, he may be a hypocrite, he may be wrong on an innumerable number of issues, he may be overweight, he may even have bad breath, but on the subject of why terrorists want to kill us Michael Moore has never been more right.

Originally published on LewRockwell.com.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Michael Moore is Right

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.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Disciple of Liberty by Jason Rink

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.)

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Mission Accomplished, Obama-Style

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!

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

How Libertarian Are You?

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.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Fail or Win? – National Review can’t decide

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.

Link to my original article:
http://libertarianchristians.com/2009/02/08/fear-is-the-new-hope/

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

The Village Voice and Fear-Hope