Richards is Director and Senior Fellow of the Center on Wealth, Poverty, and Morality at the Discovery Institute, a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics, and co-author, with James Robison, of the New York Times bestselling book Indivisible: Restoring Faith, Family, and Freedom Before It’s Too Late (FaithWords, 2012). Richards and I have many common interests: Christianity, theology, economics, politics. He sounds like my kind of guy – except that he’s not.

Richards is your typical "criticize the welfare state while you support the warfare state conservative." I wasn’t sure at first, but after looking at his new book Indivisible, and especially his remarks in chapter five ("Bearing the Sword") on pacifism, just war, the war on terror, the military, and defense spending, my suspicions were confirmed.

Richards maintains in his Public Discourse article that libertarians "tend to disagree with conservatives on social issues." He views the issues of abortion and marriage as "the two greatest sources of conflict between libertarians and conservatives." He believes that "there is a tacit if inarticulate conservative wisdom that recognizes that the libertarian commitment to free markets and limited government is best preserved within a broader conservative context." He posits that this "conservative wisdom" should appeal to the "‘everyman libertarian’ who values limited governments, individual rights, and free markets, but is not otherwise committed to a deeply libertarian philosophy." Richards concludes: "We conservatives need to strengthen our base without alienating our near allies. One way to do that is to show how the central convictions of ‘everyman libertarians’ can find a peaceful repose in a conservative home."

Baloney.

One does not have to be a conservative to oppose abortion and defend traditional marriage. And one should certainly not be a conservative when it comes to other important issues.

I have argued that because the non-aggression axiom is central to libertarianism, and because force is justified only in self-defense, and because it is wrong to threaten or initiate violence against a person or his property, and because killing is the ultimate form of aggression that, to be consistent, libertarians should be opposed to abortion.

If conservatives are so committed to pro-life principles, then why did they continue to fund Planned Parenthood during the Bush presidency? Why did John McCain and others vote to confirm pro-abortion judges like Stephen Breyer, Ruth Ginsburg, and David Souter to the Supreme Court? Why did George H. W. Bush even nominate Souter?

I agree with Richards that "just as government may not redefine our rights as individuals, it has no authority to redefine marriage." Marriage has always been and will forever be the union of a man and a woman. God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. Anything else is just cohabitation, fornication, civil union, voluntary contract, or domestic partnership, whether it is called a marriage or not. Same-sex marriage, which is not even supported by some homosexuals, is like a square circle, solid jello, or liquid steel.

But more importantly, and as I have also argued, the state should get out of the marriage business. Why do governments at every level require a license for people to engage in consensual, peaceful activity? And not only that, in some states there is not only a hefty fee to get a marriage license, but a required waiting period or recommended premarital counseling course. Why do two individuals need the state’s permission to get married? Who knows better if two individuals are fit to be married than the two individuals? If they want advice regarding their union, they can consult their pastor, parents, co-workers, and/or friends. It is none of the state’s business.

Marriage predated the state. It needs no protection, regulation, or monitoring by the state to continue its existence.

The real threat to the institution of marriage is not homosexuals wanting heterosexuals to recognize their same-sex marriages, it is Christians standing in a church and saying "for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part" and then getting divorced a few years later. The real assault on marriage is by serial adulterers who preach family values like the thrice-married Newt Gingrich. As Doug Bandow has recently said: "When it comes to sex the Republican Party is divided. A few members actually don’t believe it is the government’s business. However, the GOP is full of leaders with multiple marriages engaging in multiple affairs who lecture everyone else about the importance of sexual morality."

So, should libertarians be conservatives? Did not Ronald Reagan famously say: "The very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism"? The issues of abortion and same-sex marriage are used by conservatives to sucker pro-life, pro-family libertarians into believing that they should abandon libertarianism for conservatism. This would be a terrible mistake, for there is much more to conservatism than its emphasis on social issues.

There are four areas I would like to briefly mention that show the incontrovertible divide that exists between libertarians and conservatives.

First, the state. As concisely summed up by Mises Institute chairman Lew Rockwell:

The problem with American conservatism is that it hates the left more than the state, loves the past more than liberty, feels a greater attachment to nationalism than to the idea of self-determination, believes brute force is the answer to all social problems, and thinks it is better to impose truth rather than risk losing one soul to heresy. It has never understood the idea of freedom as a self-ordering principle of society. It has never seen the state as the enemy of what conservatives purport to favor. It has always looked to presidential power as the saving grace of what is right and true about America.

Second, the welfare state. As recently explained by Future of Freedom Foundation president Jacob Hornberger:

Conservatives are having a heyday calling President Obama a socialist. What they block out of their minds is that by their own measure, they are socialists too. . . . But while conservatives want to protect the assets of the rich from IRS confiscation and welfare-state redistribution, conservatives cannot deny that they themselves also favor the welfare-state concept of taxing people so that the state can redistribute the money to others. The only thing different between conservatives and liberals is the identity of the people they wish to tax and the identity of people they wish to receive the loot.

Third, war. I have said on more than one occasion that the very heart and soul of conservatism is war. Patriotism, Americanism, and being a real conservative are now equated with support for war, torture, and militarism. I firmly stand by this assertion that I first made in 2009, although it was true long before then.

And fourth, the drug war. Out of one side of their mouth conservatives talk about individual liberty, free markets, limited government, less intrusive government, cutting regulations, personal responsibility, and the Constitution, but at the same time they say out of the other side of their mouth that if you buy, sell, or possess a substance the government doesn’t approve of then we will lock you up in a cage. And if you buy, sell, or possess too much, then we will throw away the key.

Should libertarians be conservatives? To be consistent, must pro-life, pro-family libertarians be conservatives? Absolutely not.

Originally published on LewRockwell.com on May 14, 2012.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Should Libertarians be Conservative?

According to his profile at the Acton Institute PowerBlog:

Joe Carter is a Senior Editor at the Acton Institute. Joe also serves as an editor at the The Gospel Coalition, online editor for First Things, and as an adjunct professor of journalism at Patrick Henry College. He is the co-author of How to Argue like Jesus: Learning Persuasion from History’s Greatest Communicator (Crossway).

Although I am familiar with the Acton Institute, and appreciate its defense of the free market, I had never heard of Joe Carter until I was directed to a series of posts he wrote attacking the idea that one can be a Christian libertarian. If you are interested in reading them, see here, here, here, and here. If you are interested in reading some responses, see here, here, here, and here.

I never bothered to respond to Carter because (1) I am much too busy writing other things, (2) I have already made the case for Christian libertarianism in a lecture I gave at the Mises Institute on "Is Libertarianism Compatible with Religion?" and (3) because I have a number of friends who are in fact Christian libertarians: David Theroux of the Independent Institute, Jacob Hornberger of the Future of Freedom Foundation, William Anderson of Frostburg State University, Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute, Andrew Napolitano of Fox News, Shawn Rittenour and Jeff Herbener of Grove City College, Guido Hulsmann of the University of Angers, Lew Rockwell and Tom Woods of the Mises Institute, Norman Horn of LibertarianChristians.com, Timothy Terrell of Wofford College, Gerard Casey of University College Dublin, Jason Jewell of Faulkner University, Robert Murphy of Free Advice, Gary North of GaryNorth.com, and Jeff Tucker of Laissez Faire Books (my apologies to any of my friends I have inadvertently forgotten).

But it’s not just Christian libertarianism that Carter has a problem with.

One post of his that I do feel compelled to respond to is "How to Love Liberty More Than a Libertarian Economist." The economist in question is Brian Caplan, a Professor of Economics at George Mason University who blogs at EconLog. In his attack on libertarianism, Carter refers to a post by Caplan titled "My Beautiful Bubble." To this post of Caplan, the conservative Steve Sailer replied: "Of course, if there were a big war, it would be nice to be defended by all those dreary American you despise. And, the irony is, they’d do it, too, just because you are an American." Caplan replied to Sailer’s comment in another post titled "Reciprocity and Irony: A View from My Bubble." In his post, Carter reprinted the concluding part of Caplan’s reply in full:

1. I pay good money for these protective services. So I don’t see why my American defenders deserve any more gratitude than the countless other people – American and foreign – I trade with.
2. Since my American defenders are paid by heavy taxes whether I like it or not, they deserve far less gratitude than my genuine trading partners, who scrupulously respect the sanctity of my Bubble.
3. In fact, I think my American "defenders" owe me an apology. My best guess is that, on net, the U.S. armed forces increase the probability that a big war will adversely affect me. While they deter some threats, they provoke many others. If I lived in a Bubble in Switzerland (happily neutral since 1815), at least I’d know that I was getting some value for my tax dollars.

I take no sides in any dispute between Carter and Caplan or Caplan and Sailer. I only mention all of the above to provide the necessary context for Carter’s closing paragraphs:

What Caplan misses in Sailor’s criticism is that the "dreary Americans" are not protecting him because of the pittance he pays in taxes. They are protecting him because they love liberty more than he does.

Caplan’s libertarianism leads him (rightly, I believe) to embrace pacifism. As he says, the foreign policy that follows from libertarian principles is not isolationism, but opposition to all warfare. The [sic] is internally consistent yet self-defeating since the conclusion is that libertarianism means loving liberty only to the point that you are not required to defend it by means of warfare.

In contrast, I – like many other veterans in America – served my country (fifteen years in the Marine Corps) precisely because I loved freedom. I loved it so much that I was willing to sacrifice some of my own freedom, or even my life if necessary, to secure it for myself, for my nation, and for libertarian pacifists like Caplan. He is able to afford the luxury of living in his beautiful bubble because other Americans have bought that liberty for him. For over two centuries, American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines have paid the cost necessary to allow people like him to live freely. We have provided him with the safety and security he needs to crawl off in his elite bubble and forget that people like us exist.

Caplan is free to move to Switzerland, though I suspect he’ll keep his Bubble in Arlington, Virginia. As a libertarian economics professor at George Mason he’s smart enough to do the calculus. He knows that his optimal choice is to stay put and keep free-riding on the benefits provided by other people – whether liberal, conservative, or libertarian – who love liberty more than he does.

I want to focus on Carter’s remarks about the military in the first and third paragraphs because most of the statements he makes are typical of conservatives, and especially conservative Christian warmongers.

According to the Department of Defense, "All four active services met or exceeded their numerical accession goals for fiscal year 2011." Here are the actual numbers:

Army – 64,019 accessions, with a goal of 64,000

Navy – 33,444 accessions, with a goal of 33,400

Marine Corps – 29,773 accessions, with a goal of 29,750

Air Force – 28,518 accessions, with a goal of 28,515

This means that 155,754 Americans joined the military in fiscal year 2011 (Oct. 1, 2010–Sept. 30, 2011). Does anyone besides Joe Carter actually believe that even a majority of those who joined the military did so because they loved liberty more than Brian Caplan? Could it rather have something to do with being talked into it by lying military recruiters, the billions the military spends on advertising, the No Child Left Behind Act, the promise of free money for college, the desire to get away from home, the chance to kill foreigners for real instead of just in video games, revenge for 9/11, the adventure, the world travel, family tradition, or the generous retirement benefits? I suspect the main reason is the economy; i.e., the poverty draft.

Sorry, Joe, you – like many other veterans in America – didn’t serve your country. You served the state. You helped maintain a global empire of troops and bases. You helped carry out an evil interventionist foreign policy. You didn’t defend anyone’s freedoms. You didn’t preserve the American way of life. You didn’t uphold the Constitution. You didn’t protect the nation. You didn’t "uphold the freedoms of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for future generations" like the lying Marine Corps recruiting postcard says that was sent to high school students. Your death wouldn’t have secured anything. Your death would have been in vain.

And as for American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines paying the cost for over two centuries to allow libertarians to live freely – instead of defending our freedoms, they have jeopardized our freedoms. But don’t take my word for it; take it from VMI grad and Army reservist Jacob Hornberger: "The Troops Don’t Defend Our Freedoms" and "An Open Letter to the Troops: You’re Not Defending Our Freedoms."

Oh, U.S. troops have been busy for over two centuries, but they have been busy doing more intervening in foreign countries than defending Americans’ freedoms. Things like disaster relief, humanitarian aid, nation building, regime change, assassinations, forcibly opening markets, bombing, invading, occupying, maiming, torturing, killing, peacekeeping, enforcing UN resolutions, preemptive strikes, spreading democracy at the point of a gun, garrisoning the planet with troops and bases, training foreign armies, rebuilding infrastructure, reviving public services, unleashing civil unrest, policing the world, intervening in other countries, and fighting foreign wars.

Americans today face the triple threat of the warfare/national security/police state, largely due to conservatives in Congress (fully supported by conservative Christians outside of Congress) during the Bush years not overturning all the evils of the federal government that were already in place and adding much more evil of their own

One reason why conservative Christians like Joe Carter are so different from, and so puzzled by, Christian libertarians is because they are conservative Christian warmongers who worship the golden calf of the military.

Originally published on LewRockwell.com on May 2, 2012.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Another Conservative Christian Warmonger

I am a big fan of Lifehacker.com for its useful tips and tricks with technology and life in general. Recently I found a few particularly useful and insightful posts that are worth sharing. First, How to Quickly Read a Terms of Service. Have you ever read a TOS from start to finish? Fat chance. But there are definitely ways to get down to the most important stuff in minimal time.

When was the last time you said you didn’t have the time to do something? You probably told someone that at least once in the past week. But really, what we mean when we say that is “that activity isn’t as important to me as something else.” That is not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s good to finally say that. It’s kind of freeing. Here is an article that addresses that kind of language: Instead of Saying “I Don’t Have Time,” Say “It’s Not a Priority”.

I am a big proponent of the idea that you should work smarter, not harder. It turns out that it is almost always a bad a idea to work longer.

When your work overwhelms you, you need to get organized. But how, exactly, do you do that? Try David Allen’s GTD methodology.

Being extremely good at anything almost always involves being somewhat addicted.

Back to a little politics…

Have your heard about this ridiculous debate around after-birth abortion? It is definitely the logical conclusion of the pro-abortion philosophy, but even lefties like Slate think it is completely out of control – and that’s saying something!

Wayne Root, former VP candidate for the Libertarian Party in 2008 and current member of the Libertarian Party National Committee, recently had a radio interview where is said “It’s gotta be Romney, there is no choice.” I have never been a big fan of Root, but this is completely terrible.

And finally, here is a funny pick that Doug Stuart sent me:

If you have missed the most recent LCC posts from the past week or so, here is what’s up:

• The Year of the Bible in Pennsylvania
• On the Consistency of Christian Libertarianism
• Radio interview with the Aaron Barker Program today–listen live!
• Responding to Tim Suttle

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: Let’s Do a Little Lifehacking

To tune in later today, go to Aaron’s website and look for the “listen live” link on the right hand side.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Radio interview with the Aaron Barker Program today–listen live!

One thing Suttle and I completely agree on is the moral capacity and worth of the individual. Suttle admits this was neglected in the book, though my guess is that no honest reader would assume Suttle believes otherwise. Any Christian who engages issues of justice in a book obviously attributes moral worth to every individual.

The pushback comes, however, from the voluntaristic element inherent in what I quoted from Norman Horn’s review of Opitz. Suttle writes, “I don’t think our inclination is a factor in terms of what it means to be an individual/person. Our inclination toward being a hermit or social creature is secondary to the fact that we are born vulnerable and dependent creatures.” Further, he writes, “Our essential connected-ness is in our nature… But our involvement in humanity is not voluntaristic.”

There are two concepts here that are at play: “humanity” and “community.” It’s quite possible brevity prevented clarity in my critique. Let’s try it this way: because God created us for community, rejecting it is to deny ourselves participation in the fullness of the human experience. Yet what makes that human experience meaningful depends on the extent to which individuals are free to make commitments to the communities they find valuable. Jesus’ call to follow him implies openness and the possibility of rejection. The hermit is free to be left alone, damned as he might be. But there is no real community by forcing hermits to “belong.”

I find it rewarding that Suttle feels he can find common ground with many types of people from all over the political spectrum. I’ve been hard pressed to find a single social justice advocate who will even entertain the thought that libertarianism and social justice are possible bedfellows. Yet Suttle seems open: “Libertarianism and social justice are not fundamentally opposed to one another.” I hope this conversation can continue!

As a pastor, Suttle asks some really good reflective questions, and in doing so makes some subtle praises for our site, libertarianchristians.com. The outstanding pragmatic question is this one: “Does our society possess the kind of virtues necessary to make self-governing under a more libertarian view work? Is our society too selfish for that?” The short answer is, “No, our society does not. Yes, it is too selfish.” But here’s the follow-up: “If this is indeed the reality, what does this say about the makeup of social justice in our society today?”

Is it truly social and is it truly just when the nature of society itself is governed from the top down by a concentrated set of powers? I’m fairly certain that God is pleased when poor people are merely fed, but my strong hunch is that the command to love the poor has a broader goals: the harmonic relationships of those living in community. It is tremendously difficult to choose to love and serve those who have nothing. It isn’t something we ought to outsource to a single entity forcing us to do it anyway. “Your hearts are far from me” comes to mind as a relevant verse from the Old Testament.

But what lies behind this question is a basic fear, one that I’m likewise a bit nervous to admit. We’re not dealing with software that runs like it’s been programmed. We’re not dealing with sheep who simply follow the one in front of it. We’re dealing with people who have ends with means different from each other which causes conflict. For most people—especially those who raise an eyebrow at the market—it takes a major amount of faith to just “let the market do it’s work.” (Thomas Sowell says he doesn’t have faith in the market, he has evidence. But that’s another article!) The market is full of sinful human beings, some who won’t blink at harming others to achieve those ends. It’s natural to be nervous, but the mechanisms libertarians favor are not “anything goes,” but a method to channel our energy to “get what we want at others’ expense” by requiring us to serve one another. The oft-chided “invisible hand” isn’t just some voodoo result of any and every market, but a shorthand way of saying, “Look at the progress that happens when people are required to trade rather than plunder!”

Suttle includes liberty, justice, and equality as some of the virtues of the Kingdom of God that are compatible with libertarianism. His concern, it seems, are the other virtues that seem to “run counter to the libertarian stream”: mutuality, self-sacrifice, self-emptying, vulnerability, enemy love, refusal of violence, peace, economic justice, social justice.

Perhaps the brand(s) of libertarianism Suttle has been exposed to have been too bold in purpose so as to obscure the breadth of the philosophy of liberty. An applied philosophy of liberty is not one which directly espouses the virtues of self-sacrifice, self-emptying, vulnerability, or enemy love; but neither would it exclude their existence. The presence of liberty is alone insufficient to provide these qualities in individuals. But we would be mistaken to believe that a philosophy of liberty runs counter to them. Those who can truly be sacrificial, self-emptying, and enemy-loving have found true freedom in the will to be more than those who simply refrain from aggression (the bare minimum of liberty).

The refusal of violence (oustide of self-defense) is a common theme for libertarians, with peace being the benchmark of a libertarian social framework. I’m confused that Suttle would include these as candidates of counter-libertarian virtues. If by “peace” we mean the shalom of God, then liberty is the starting point by which people can begin to grasp real social peace. To have inherently divisive social conflict through the political mechanism is no way to begin to establish a true peace in society.

That leaves us with mutuality, economic justice, and social justice. I’ll have to ask Suttle to explain what he means by mutuality and economic justice. As for social justice, I’ll respond simply: without liberty, social justice is but a shadow of genuine social harmony, for it cloaks itself in the language of outcomes without care for the morality of the means. How can justice be considered “social” when conformity is mandatory?

The questions Suttle raises are important for libertarian Christians to consider. Suttle himself seems open enough to making friends with libertarians, especially those who claim the name of Christ. I hope a dialogue will continue between us as we seek mutual understanding of our beliefs and goals.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Responding to Tim Suttle

Anthony Gregory asks, “You call this a war? I’ll show you a war.” He contends that we are prone to forget the atrocities of today’s wars because they are so distant to our daily lives. This is the most important link you can read from this weekly news post.

David Theroux, President of the Independent Institute, did an interview this week with To the Source about C.S. Lewis and the State.

One of my heroes, Stephan Kinsella, did an amazing interview with The Daily Bell this week on libertarianism and intellectual property. It is a superb read with a great many further links and resources for the interested reader.

In other IP news, Summit Entertainment is apparently claiming to own the date “November 20, 2009” and issued a DMCA takedown on art created on that day. No kidding.

Have you heard that Tide is now being used like money on the black market? Talk about money laundering…

I’m a science fiction fan, so here’s something for other SF lovers out there: Top 10 Best Retorts in Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Remember Kony 2012, or is that old news at this point? Here is another perspective on Kony and the White Savior Industrial Complex.

Are you involved in the Ron Paul 2012 presidential campaign in some way? Here is a new book you can download for free that might interest you.

There was a lot going on at home this week (in particular, my wife was in town!) so posting time was scarce. But if you didn’t visit LCC this week, here is what you missed:

• Time for a Drink

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: You Call this a War?

RawStory reports that ISPs based in the United States will begin reporting your internet usage to the Feds as early as July 12, 2012. Ostensibly the purpose is “reduction of piracy” but this is the federal government for goodness sake, the most benign and generous institution on the planet!

Joe Carter continues his criticism of libertarians at the Acton Blog. You can see my response to his initial volleys here, and there will indeed be more to come next week. In the meantime, perhaps Hayek’s article Why I am Not a Conservative would be worthwhile to review again.

The Ludwig von Mises Institute Blog is going through a transition period right now, and one result is the founding of a new blog for interesting commentary called The Circle Bastiat. I’m excited to see what TCB bloggers will do with their new site.

My friend and former LVMI visionary Jeff Tucker is now the head of the great company Laissez Faire Books. He now writes regularly for their main blog, Whiskey and Gunpowder (fantastic name), and I highly recommend signing up for their mailing list. Even for the week or so that I have been on the list, I have found the articles they are sending superb. For instance, The Economics of the Timeline is a great read. He also had some excellent commentary on the aforementioned internet-spying debacle.

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

• Some Caliphate
• Debating Christian Libertarianism
• The TSA is Wasteful, Unhealthy, and Unnecessary
• Should Christians Support the War on Drugs?

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 Government Wants Your Internets!

I am long overdue to comment on what I sincerely believe to be one of the best new libertarian works from 2011, Judge Andrew Napolitano’s It is Dangerous to be Right When the Government is Wrong. To a great extent, I am tempted just to stop here and tell everybody to buy the book and read it immediately, but such would make me a very poor reviewer overall. The heroic host of FreedomWatch deserves better than that.

The prime beauty of Napolitano’s work is encapsulated in the Introduction, titled “Where do Our Rights Come From?” Napolitano takes his legal background as a judge and explains the natural law and natural rights (which he says are separate but related concepts) in an incredibly powerful way. He places the natural law and our rights as human beings in contradistinction with the fake “laws” that governments impose. The “legal positivism” philosophy, which says that whatever the state says is law, is denounced as a falsehood. What is more, Christians will clearly see Napolitano’s Christian faith (with a Catholic background) through his discussions of the origins of the natural law.

Napolitano continues in the “chapters” of the book working out this understanding of the eternal law, natural law, and natural rights, approaching a variety of topics including economic freedom and property rights, free speech, freedom of association, self-defense, freedom to travel and immigration, sound money, and doing what you want with your own body. Dealing with these topics is not novel, but what makes Napolitano’s explanation special is the data presented in the book. Example after example is provided that illustrate the principles in enlightening ways, and all the examples are backed up in the notes with websites, books, articles, and various other source materials.

The “Ride on Dr. Feinberg’s Bus” chapter, for instance, was particularly interesting to read. Napolitano poses a hypothetical situation for us to consider, a ride on the bus that becomes annoying and disgusting to the point of absurdity, but that none of the actions, however annoying they may be, can be considered criminal. Without getting too detailed with the specifics, Napolitano then explains why there must be a moral limit upon what kind of actions can be made illegal (hint: only aggressive behavior). Besides colorful examples, the statistics in the book are a terrific resource for future use. Indeed, I have already referenced this book a number of times when writing articles and discussing particular topics (namely, guns and health care) with my non-libertarian friends.

Part of what excites me about the book is that it is clearly targeting people who are questioning the government, but don’t know where to start building their philosophy of government. He says, “If there is any message that I hope to communicate in this book, it is that all of us should be constantly questioning the validity of our officials’ commands… We must stop obeying the unjust laws with which the government enslaves.” Napolitano has gone back to the basics and covers the gamut of personal liberty boldly and convincingly. This is not a new thing to do, but this book is special because it does so in a more accessible way to outsiders than I generally have the pleasure of reading. I cannot imagine someone from the left or right putting down the book and rejecting the fundamental claims about law and rights without understanding that by doing so they spurn all the benefits of Western civilization itself.

I do not know if this will be a book looked upon in a century as a timeless classic. However, this is a book whose time has come. In a day when so many of us do not understand what the basis of law is, Napolitano has provided an accessible book that will remind some, educate all, enlighten our way, and encourage many to take a strong stand against the tyranny of statism.

Interested in learning more? Check out the book at Amazon.com. Remember that you support the work of LibertarianChristians.com every time you make a purchase at Amazon for 24 hours after clicking an LCC link!

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

“It is Dangerous to be Right when the Government is Wrong” Book Review

Social Cooperation: Why Thieves Hate Free Markets – This view explains how the marketplace shares information for mutual self-interest. It is an excellent demonstration of cooperation, counter to the supposed “dog eat dog” mentality that anti-free market people like to propose about the world. Reputation matters!

The Real "Truth About the Economy:" Have Wages Stagnated? – Don Boudreaux argues that we really are better off economically than twenty years ago (contra certain anti-capitalist claims). We should appreciate how the market ecosystem lifts all boats with time.

What You Should Know About School Choice – This is my least favorite video of the three mentioned in this post. What I appreciate about it is the emphasis on competition. Even in the documentary Waiting for Superman (made by immensely less libertarian people), what has become abundantly clear over the past few decades is that a little competition in education goes a very long way. However, my one problem with this video, as with all those who advocate school choice in general, is that school choice programs can very easily become a back door for furthering state control over education. A little free funding was exactly how public schooling was pitched long ago, and I don’t ever want to see homeschooling or private schooling taken in by such tactics. Nonetheless, the market uses what it is given, and competition does work. I can stick to that story.

What is your favorite LearnLiberty.org video? Have you seen a really amazing video online recently that you want to share? Let us know in the comments below.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

New videos from LearnLiberty.org

The Gadsden flag proudly displays the message “Don’t tread on me.” At first glance, this is understandably interpreted as selfish. Deeper reflection, however, conveys a more important meaning: “Don’t tread on others.” Deeper yet, the mantra applies equally to everyone. Properly understood, the image announces to everyone, “Don’t tread on anyone.”

While libertarians are far from advocating a “do anything you want” way of life, Christian critics claim that this mentality contradicts both the demands Jesus makes of his followers and the expectations God has for societies. To be sure, the Bible presents serious consequences for those who do not care for others in need (see Matthew 25). In the Old Testament, God displays much dismay, even anger, when the poor are being mistreated or ignored. And Jesus announced liberation to those oppressed by evil regimes, enslaved by social norms, and dehumanized by others. It isn’t that libertarians can’t still agree with and pursue these elements. It’s just that we believe that whatever form “treading” takes, it must be abolished (hence the anarchist impulse to denounce the State).

In order to be clear about what being a libertarian is, we must be clear what it is not. It is not absolution of responsibility to those in need. It is not license to excuse inaction. It is, essentially, declaring a plethora of “thou shalt nots.” How one chooses to live purposefully is another matter.

“Don’t Tread On Anyone” is an important message, but it is simply the starting point, a reminder to society that Bastiat’s “everybody plunders everybody” isn’t a viable option for a just society. While we should be clear that liberty isn’t just about what we can’t do, we must also be clear that ending oppression in all forms is a worthy start.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Don’t Tread On Who?