Jacob Winograd [00:00:01]:
We can define a political philosophy based on first principles, like libertarianism would be grounded in self ownership and the non aggression principle. But that can sometimes be a weird way to introduce a philosophy to someone. And sometimes it’s easier to talk about where do libertarians, like you would ask, where do Democrats and Republicans stand on particular issues of, of domestic or foreign policy? And so let’s dive into that today.
Knowledgeable Narrator [00:00:32]:
If Christ is king, how should the Christian consider the kingdoms of this world? What does the Bible teach us about human authority and what it means to love our neighbors and our enemies? Before we render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, let’s know what it means to render unto God what is God’s. This is the Biblical Anarchy Podcast, the mock modern prophetic voice against war and empire.
Jacob Winograd [00:01:03]:
Hey everyone, Jacob Winograd here, host of the Biblical Anarchy Podcast, a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute, part of our Christians for Liberty network. I thought for today’s episode a little bit more laid back, I would take a political compass test. I’ve seen a lot of other podcasters and show hosts do this in the past, and I suppose I thought it was always sort of like not necessary for me to do it because I’m just sort of saying I’m a libertarian anarchist from the get go of my show’s title. But these tests can be important for a couple of reasons.
I think sometimes they demonstrate how trying to map out political views on compasses and maps and things like of that nature can be complex because sometimes you take the result, you take those tests, and the results don’t match with where you or others would describe yourself as being. And sometimes it’s also helpful and I thought it’d be helpful here just to for those who aren’t libertarians or who are libertarian, curious who listen to the show to kind of see where I stand and hear where libertarians generally stand on the issues. And so I’m taking, I’m not saying this is the best test I’ve seen other tests that I think might have even more merit than this one. But this is like the classic political compass test from political compass.org, which has like the four quadrants based on two axes.
Jacob Winograd [00:02:24]:
One axes is kind of like right versus left, and then the up and down axes is authoritarian versus libertarian. So I would imagine as a conservative Christian evangelical orthodox lowercase o and as a anarcho capitalist libertarian, that I should be as far to the bottom and to the right as one could be.
But I’ve taken these in the past and it’s Put me in that lower bottom right quadrant, but not quite as far down to the right as one might expect. So we’ll see how it turns out this time. So question one. We’re starting with a few propositions concerning how you see the country and the world. So the first question is if economic globalization is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of transnational corporations. I’ve taken test enough that I remember this question and I always find this question very confusing because it’s almost like I don’t like how the question is sort of there, there’s an expression here in terms of like the logical fallacies.
Jacob Winograd [00:03:34]:
I think it’s. This would be known as man. I can’t think of the right expression. Maybe it’ll come back to me. But it’s sort of the leading question in terms of that. Sort of like it’s assuming that if, if you know. So there’s the. If economic globalization is inevitable, it should serve humanity rather than the interests of transnational corporations.
Jacob Winograd [00:03:59]:
There’s something in there that, that seems to be like some baked in assumptions and almost like a proposed dichotomy that I don’t know, that I agree with. I don’t even know if I properly understand whoever wrote this question what they mean by all this. It’s just such a muddy question. So economic globalization should be. Just to start out with defining things. We should be careful to distinguish economic globalization from political globalization. And I’m not a globalist in a governance sense. Like I don’t want a one world government.
Jacob Winograd [00:04:39]:
And while I think there should be free trade with all, I don’t want there to be these giant international governing bodies like the United nations or the World Health Organization or the International Monetary Fund. I just, I’m very skeptical of these things. But economic globalization is more or less just a sort of synonym for free trade with all. So as opposed to like protectionism and hyper nationalism that would use tariffs and, and not have free trade.
Now if we’re going to have that, if it’s inevitable, should it primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of transnational corporations? Again, this is just a weird question because what does it mean to serve humanity? And how is. What are the interests of transnational corporations? And what are the, what do you mean by a transnational corporation? Because I’m not even sure that I would agree with, you know, or support the idea of a transnational corporation. So it kind of leaves me when you have these questions that. So the answers are to agree or disagree or to strongly agree or to Strongly disagree.
Jacob Winograd [00:05:49]:
I’m just like, I don’t even know how to answer this. So I guess I would assume that someone wrote this question with some left leaning worldviews in and they’re very skeptical of corporations and they’re almost as a caricature saying that free markets and trade are going to benefit the rich and not the poor and that, well, wouldn’t like, shouldn’t we have free trade that benefits the lower parts of society and the common man? But I think that this is to almost distort a proper view of economics to be against. I’m against corporations when they garner protections and legal liability and special privileges from the state.
But I’m not against the idea of big businesses like Amazon or etc. That are successful because they just are successful and they provide people reasonable goods and services at reasonable prices and they just do better in the free market of competition in their particular industries. And so I, I would have to say that I’ll go with disagree based on that. I think there’s this baked in assumption that we should be not just skeptical of corporations as a state outgrowth, but there’s that like, you know, there’s this like anti capitalist sort of energy or orientation to the question that I would just disagree with. And so I’m going to say disagree.
Jacob Winograd [00:07:18]:
I’d always support my country whether it was right or wrong. I mean that’s just. We went from a really hard question to a really easy question like no, I would not always support my. That’s a strongly disagree. I am quite willing to disagree with my, my country and not support my country when it’s in the wrong. My loyalty isn’t to a flag. My loyalty isn’t to geography. My loyalty isn’t to a history or to a government.
Jacob Winograd [00:07:43]:
My loyalty is to Christ and his kingdom alone and to what is right and what is wrong beyond that. And so if my country’s in the wrong, then to do what is right means to not to support my country. I don’t know who would even like. It’s weird. If you agree with this question. I’d always support my country. Like would you, if you lived in Nazi Germany, would you always support your country? So I think it’s an easy question. No one chooses their country of birth, so it’s foolish to be proud of it.
Jacob Winograd [00:08:16]:
So that’s a tough one. Depends on what you mean by, by being. Having pride or to be proud. I would say that I think it’s foolish to have too much of your identity and too much of a pride in your country of birth, I think it’s fine to have a general fondness of your national heritage if there’s things to be proud of.
So, like, if I lived in Germany, I wouldn’t be proud of the Nazi era or a lot of other things in the history. Just like as an American, I’m not proud of our treatment of the Native Americans or our treatment of other minorities or some of the wars that we’ve participated in that our government dragged us into that I think were unjust. But there’s things about the American experiment and ethos which I find to be admirable. But I think where I usually usually land on this question is I say, when you find the good parts of any nation’s history, what you’re actually supporting are ideas and not so much the.
Jacob Winograd [00:09:17]:
You know, you’re taking pride in what people did. That was good. So I would say that you can be patriotic without being nationalistic. And even then, I think to be patriotic, I. I don’t know. This is a tough one. Like, I’m not against being patriotic. I’m not saying I hate America, but at the end of the day, if someone asks me, am I proud to be an American, I’m.
Jacob Winograd [00:09:44]:
I’m not, like, ashamed to be an American, but I’m not proud to be an American. And I think. I do think there’s a bit of foolishness and from a Christian perspective, a bit of idolatry that comes into play when you venture into having some. Some pride based upon the country you live in. So I’m gonna say agree. Not like, strongly agree, but agree. Our race has many superior qualities compared with other races. This is a silly question.
Jacob Winograd [00:10:17]:
I’m. I’m going to say. I want to say disagree. I. I think that I’m not, like, total race egalitarian to the point where I, like. I think we. I wish we were able to have as a society, more honest conversations about the differences between different ethnicities. It’s the well has been poisoned.
Jacob Winograd [00:10:38]:
Oh, that. That’s the expression I was looking for earlier, by the way. The. The poisoning of the well. To that first question, I think the conversation of differences between ethnic groups has been poisoned by people who want to argue for, like, racial determinism and that. Like, they’ll argue. Usually it’s white supremacists who do this, but you see this in other groups as well. To kind of argue for a very deterministic, hierarchical view of ethnicities.
Jacob Winograd [00:11:07]:
To say, like, one is better than the other. I don’t believe in that. But I don’t know that I want to flatten the landscape to the point where we don’t acknowledge any of the differences. So that’s why I would say disagree and not strongly disagree. Like it’s usually just about trade offs. Right? Like I think you can sometimes in particular, like in sports, like there are some sports where it’s hard to argue that African Americans don’t sometimes have this comparative advantage to other ethnicities when it comes to athletic aptitude. But that can vary sport by sport. And it’s not, you know, it’s, it’s still kind of fluid.
Jacob Winograd [00:11:45]:
Right. So that, that’s why I would say that I want to disagree that like, I don’t think it’s many and I don’t know if it’s superior. Like, it’s just, it seems that like, if you were going to tell me to agree or disagree with that statement, I would disagree it because I think it oversimplifies and overst. And it’s usually, often people who say this use usually say it with an agenda of hate and bigotry.
But I’m not going to go so far as to like, I’m not a egalitarian on anything other than our, our identity in Christ and our, you know, we’re all equal in our, our fallenness and our need, our dependence on a need for a savior. But, but other than that, I’m not an egalitarian and, and I do think that there are differences in, in different ethnic groups and different cultures and, but I, I don’t know that I want to characterize those differences in terms of superiority or supremacy. I think that’s harmful. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Jacob Winograd [00:12:49]:
How is this even a political question? No, the, it’s just, there’s not enough information like maybe, maybe not. But just because someone opposed, like I. So trying to think of a good example here. I am a critic of my government. Vladimir Putin is a, a critic of my government. I don’t think Vladimir Putin is my friend. So it’s just, I’ve never liked that expression. I’m gonna say disagree.
Jacob Winograd [00:13:20]:
Military action that defies international law is sometimes justified. This is a tough one because I don’t believe in international law necessarily as an ancap, but I think international law is kind of a proxy for some kind of attempt at a just war theory agreement between nations. And I generally think international law is, is at least, I don’t know, it’s, it’s, it’s more beneficial than it is harmful. But the key here is sometimes the military Action that justifies international law is sometimes justified. Here’s the problem. Technically, in the very technical sense of the question, I would probably like like tacitly, very softly agree, right, like slightly agree. But in terms of real life application of this question, I would disagree and be tempted to strongly disagree. So this is one of those things where there’s baked in assumptions here.
Jacob Winograd [00:14:20]:
And this is part of my problem with this political compass test is that it asks questions in a way where you have to do a lot of, in interpretation of what, how the questioner is defining certain things. I’m not going to be able to strongly disagree or strongly agree. I wish there was a neutral option, but I’m going to have to say agree very, very cautiously. Like just technically the way that sentence is phrased, I would have to say agree. But I just think it’s a bad question. There is now a worrying fusion of information and entertainment. Yeah, I would agree. I think I want people to be vigilant of that and I don’t want government censorship of entertainment or news.
Jacob Winograd [00:15:06]:
But yeah, certainly propaganda has evolved to be baked into our media, including our entertainment. And that, that’s, that’s, that’s been, for, it’s been a net negative one society, I think. All right, ready for the next page. Now, the economy, we’re not, we’re, we’re talking attitude here, not the FTSE index.
People are ultimately divided by class or more by class than by nationality. I would agree. Generally, I think like the middle class worker in one country had a lot in common with the middle class worker another country and same with the, the, the rich in one country have a lot in common with the rich in another country and politicians have a lot in common with the politicians in other countries. You see what I’m getting at? So I, you know, it’s not to say the question is not saying that they’re not divided at all by nationality, but just that class weighs more than nationality and I would agree with that.
Jacob Winograd [00:16:03]:
Controlling inflation is more important than controlling unemployment. Oh, App. Well, hold on, let me think about here. Oh yeah, absolutely. You can’t even control unemployment at all. Like unemployment, like unemployment is sort of a secondary, like, you know, consequence of economic policy, whereas inflation is more of a, like it’s caused by our monetary policy, caused by the fiat currency, the Federal Reserve. And, and you know, rapid inflation is destructive and cost us unemployment. So yeah, I just strongly agree controlling inflation is far more important than controlling unemployment because corporations cannot be trusted to voluntarily protect the environment they require regulation.
Jacob Winograd [00:16:47]:
Strongly disagree. The state is the biggest polluter in world history. The state does not protect the environment. Regulations basically are just, they sort of just give corporations a pass to pollute by a certain amount and to, or to just bribe officials or to bribe the lawmakers to write the regulations in a way that help them to push out competition out of the arena. So I, I feel like I need to devote a podcast to this at some point. It’s a very complex issue and I’m not an expert on this. But the, it’s funny how even a conservatives will argue the environmental side to try to debunk libertarianism. It’s.
Jacob Winograd [00:17:31]:
Listen, I, I’m a former lefty, I used to be a vegan for environmental reasons. I care about the environment. And first of all war destroys the environment and the state has no economic incentive to protect the environment. And just there are better market means for handling this. There’s also the sort of like Haslow hierarchy of needs argument which is that we actually see that countries that become first world countries economically on their own kind of like start to have market preferences for reducing environmental impact.
Whereas third world countries and second world countries, they, they don’t have, they’re not rich enough, they’re not prosperous enough, they’re not having their basic needs cared enough, cared for enough to care enough about the environment. So you need free market capitalism to even get to the point where you care about the environment. And regulations are not free market outcomes.
Jacob Winograd [00:18:28]:
They stifle free markets, they create monopoly, they don’t create prosperity. So just a lot of reasons there for why I would strongly disagree. I think any libertarian would have to hit strongly disagree. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need is a fundamentally good idea. Strongly disagreeable. I’m not going to give an explanation for all of them. I just think that’s rather obvious. The freer the market, the freer the people.
Jacob Winograd [00:18:55]:
Strongly agree. It’s a sad reflection on our society that something as basic as drinking water is now a bottled branded consumer product. I’m going to hit disagree. I’m not going to hit strongly disagree only because it is somewhat sad that the state regulates capturing your own water and like catching it and being self sufficient.
And so I wish the state wasn’t intervening there. But I think it’s a, it’s a positive reflection on society that it’s not bad that you have to buy water sometimes like water, clean water is now more available than it used to be and you have to pay some money for it, but it’s ultimately safer. I think that is, this is a something to celebrate the market has produced that water is so widely available and in different types and to meet different wants and needs. Land shouldn’t be a commodity to be bought and sold.
Jacob Winograd [00:19:49]:
Strongly disagree. I am not a communist or a georgist, so hopefully there’s no communists or georgists watching this. That’s a. Georgism is this weird philosophy created by Henry George which is like an attempt to be libertarian. But they, they don’t think that land should be a commodity to be bought and sold. And anyway it. No, I think land. Now to be clear, land is a commodity to be bought and sold.
Jacob Winograd [00:20:18]:
If you legitimately own it, I don’t think that you should be able to just go like I own the Grand Canyon now I’m going to sell it. Like you have to homestead the land to own it. But if you own land because you’ve legitimately homesteaded it, you do own it and you can sell it to someone else. Someone else can buy. Is regrettable that many personal fortunes have been made by people who simply manipulate money and contribute nothing to their society. It is regrettable that many personal people simply manipulate money. It is regret. I want to say agree it is regrettable.
Jacob Winograd [00:20:52]:
But this is a outcome that is because of state capitalism, not free market capitalism. Yeah, I’m going to put it there because in. So here’s only a problem. People might, who wrote this question might think that in being an investor is manipulating money. Like I think in a free market you would have bankers, you’d have investors, you’d have people who their jobs weren’t like labor. They’d have jobs in finances and managing market funds and in investments and giving loans and things like that. And so you could say though, they’re manipulating money. But I think a lot of what happens today is it’s doing that in a fiat.
Jacob Winograd [00:21:34]:
So here’s the problem. The question’s actually more complicated because of the fiat money currency we live in. So it’s kind of like in my ideal economic setup, it’s not regrettable that people would make fortunes by manipulating money. See, here’s the problem. The baked in contribute nothing to their society. This is one of those things where the left and the right are both right in their own way. The left is correct when like the whole like Occupy Wall street eat the rich. Like yeah, there, there are a lot of people who actually don’t contribute to society who are like parasites.
Jacob Winograd [00:22:09]:
It’s socialism for the rich. It’s people who make their money by taking advantage of the poor through the Fiat money currency system that the Federal Reserve makes possible by manipulating investments and banks and all sorts of stuff and you know, sometimes breaking laws and maneuvering politicians to pass regulations in their favor. There’s a lot to this and it is regrettable in a true free market setting where none of that is possible because the state doesn’t have that power in the economy or doesn’t exist, people would make money by manipulating money in a sense,
but they would be contributing to society. So for that reason, even though it’s kind of a lefty critique that’s embedded into this question, I have to agree with it because it, it, if you define the contributes nothing to society correctly, then that’s true. It’s just that it is possible to manipulate money in a way that does contribute to society. And I don’t know that the person who wrote this would account for that. But it’s one of those questions that’s hard to answer. I, I would, I have reservations about answering agree and I have reservations about answering disagree.
Jacob Winograd [00:23:22]:
But I think I have more reservations if I were to say disagree than agree. So I’m going to have to say agree. Protectionism is sometimes necessary in trade. Strongly disagree. The only social responsibility of a company should be to deliver a profit to its shareholders. See, the, the, the phrase social responsibility there is a little confusing. I think that profit is something that’s misaligned and sort of demonized in our society by both left and sometimes right and center profit. Listen, there is such a thing as greed.
Jacob Winograd [00:24:03]:
There is such a thing as companies acting with greed in ways that we might as Christians think are dehumanizing and not treating the workers fairly. But profit is something that companies use to determine if in a market sense, if they are using their resources in a way that is proper.
Like if you’re not making a profit, then you’re not doing a good job at meeting your consumers needs at a, in a way that is efficient, which is how you know you’re doing a good job. And the market awards rewards those who meet the needs of the market in the most efficient way possible by giving them the profit incentive. Right. And so I guess what I would say to this because I think I don’t want to necessarily make a, a flattening of company and the people in the company. I think there are other responsibilities that you have as a company or the head of a company, those running the company beyond just the profit. You have a responsibility to like the protection of your employees.
Jacob Winograd [00:25:17]:
Right? To justice, to like. I think there’s other social Responsibilities. I think there’s a hierarchy of responsibilities, a hierarchy of duties. And profit is not the only one. Profit is a important one though and is often scrutinized and demonized. So it’s a little tricky to answer the way that it’s written. The other sense is the only social responsibility. See, the problem is, I know that if I were to say I disagree on this, it’s going to not understand my nuanced take here.
Jacob Winograd [00:25:54]:
And it’s going to think that I’m demonizing profit, which I’m not. So because there’s not a, there’s not a perfect way to answer this. I’m going to say agree, not strongly agree, but agree the rich are too highly taxed. I would say strongly agree. I don’t think that taxing the rich is a way to fund a society. I don’t think that just because someone makes a lot of money means they should be taxed more. This is counterintuitive when you think about it, because if we want there to be more jobs, we want things to be cheaper. Taxing those who are the most productive in society is not a path to that.
Jacob Winograd [00:26:39]:
It is a short term predation at the cost of long term production. So yeah, those with the ability to pay should have access to higher standards of medical care. I would say, I would say strongly agree. Governments should penalize businesses that mislead the public. So this is tricky here because what do you mean by mislead? What do you mean by government? I would say fraud is a crime. So if there’s false advertising, if there is deception, you know, in business practices and contracts, then I think that there is a, a crime there. You know, it involves people who gave their money under false pretenses. And so I would say agree, not strongly agree because it’s just too vague.
Jacob Winograd [00:27:31]:
A genuine free market requires restrictions on the ability of predator multinationals to create monopolies. So I’m not in favor of monopolies and I am somewhat skeptical of giant transnational corporations. A genuine free market is sort of by itself, by its own nature going to prevent such giant monopolies from being created. Because there’s always the ability for competition and people to start, you know,
at any level and just offer the same thing cheaper or better, especially with the invention of the Internet and free trade and travel. So the state granted protection from liability and cheap credit and capital and, and bailouts and regulations that are where the reg. The, the regulators are, are bought off by lobbyists and special interest groups to write the regulations in ways that I’ve said all this already. You know, these are ways in which the state is sort of as the state is a monopoly and the state is 99.99% of the time the reason for existing monopolies in today’s society. So when this says a genuine free market requires restrictions on the ability, it’s, it’s implying that, that there should be government restrictions.
Jacob Winograd [00:28:53]:
And I don’t agree with that. So I have to say disagree. All right, next page. We’re about halfway done. These are now personal social values. Abortion, when the woman’s life is not threatened, should always be illegal. I’m going to say agree. I am pro life.
Jacob Winograd [00:29:12]:
As a libertarian. I view that like the government’s legitimate functions, civil governance is there to protect rights, to enforce civil justice. And the wrongful taking of a human life is aggression. And that falls under the non aggression principle. It’s a violation of self ownership. I, I don’t agree with evictionism from Maltra Block. I think that if, I don’t think that the fetus was a trespasser, it didn’t put itself there. Even in cases of, of sexual assault, the fetus did not put itself there.
Jacob Winograd [00:29:44]:
It is a. Yeah, this is not the episode to give a full libertarian take on abortion because that would take too long. But yeah, I don’t think that the woman’s right to control her body supersedes the fetus’s right to not be murdered. Now how this works out in a polycentric legal order, there’s, there’s nuance and conversations about that, but just in the general sense, should it be like when I read the word illegal, I read is it a crime? And when I read the word crime or illegal, I’m thinking is there aggression? And I think there is aggression. So therefore I would agree all authority should be questioned. Sure. I mean like you should question authority. I think it’s good to question good.
Jacob Winograd [00:30:29]:
Authority welcomes question questioning. Well, right, if you have the answers and you have the competency, if you, if you are a just ruler of the sorts, right. If you’re in a position of authority and you’re a, and, and you deserve to be there and you’re using your authority for good, then you should never be offended by questioned. You should never be scared of questioned. So yeah, I think all authority should be questioned.
An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I mean, I disagree with this on multiple fronts because well, this is another one of these things that there’s, there are layers to this which I don’t have time to get into this, gets into a couple things. There’s the Sermon on the Mount and what Jesus says about an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
Jacob Winograd [00:31:14]:
There’s also within libertarian legal theory, the idea that true justice doesn’t come from just like, you know, if I stole a hundred dollars, I pay a hundred dollars, it’s like double or more is owed back because there’s the returning what was stolen, there’s a fine and penalties and double restitution or triple restitution. So it gets complicated.
Now I believe in like for like. Right. And that’s kind of more what an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth meant was not about, not proportionality necessarily in terms of the, the, the penalty clauses and, and fines that come with restitution for theft. But more that just like you, you would deal with the crime of theft in a way that is making the victim whole for their theft. But like if, if someone stole from you and then you steal from them or you murder one of their family members or like, like that’s, that’s not proportional justice. That’s not an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
Jacob Winograd [00:32:18]:
So this is complicated. I don’t actually know how to answer this because it’s just, it’s literally just put on the test there as a statement. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I’m just going to say disagree. That’s because of how vague it is there, there is some truth to the principle there. But applying it to vaguely and broadly without any context, I, I would be cautious of that. Taxpayers should not be expected to prop up any theaters or museums that cannot survive on a commercial basis. I would agree.
Jacob Winograd [00:32:48]:
Schools should not make classroom attendant compulsory. I would strongly agree with that. And I would go even further to say that we should abolish all public schools and the Department of Education and all government regulation on education. All people have their rights, but it is better for us, it’s better for all of us that different sorts of people should keep to their own kind. Disagree. I, I think free trade is good. I think diversity is a strength if it is voluntary. I think if someone doesn’t want to associate with people who aren’t like them, they have the right to do that.
Jacob Winograd [00:33:24]:
But in general it’s better for people to be willing to. I mean. And what do you mean by keep to their own kind? Like, because I mean, Japan keeps to their own kind, but they still engage in free trade. Right. So I, it’s Just, just overall disagree. I think if this was going to say that it should be illegal to discriminate or anything like that, like I believe in freedom of association and freedom of disassociation, but I think it is better for people. I, I think, I think, you know, pluralism and to some extent multiculturalism is good. There is a point in which multiculturalism becomes bad because not all culturals, sorry, not, not all cultures are created equal and some of them are negative.
Jacob Winograd [00:34:08]:
So I wouldn’t say, this is why I said disagree, not strongly disagree because like there, there are points at which having some freedom of disassociation is good. But, but in general, I, I, I would like to err on the side of association than disassociation. Good parents sometimes have to spank their children.
Man, my views have evolved a lot on this over the years. I, I’m still going to say disagree. I think sometimes, listen, almost none of us are good parents. A good parent raises their kid in the way and is a leader in a way that they don’t have to resort to physical force. Now I think sometimes some children as they get older have kind of like been mis parented so badly that I understand why spanking is sometimes used as this like lesser of two evils.
Jacob Winograd [00:35:00]:
But I just think in like I’m not, I’m not a purist on this and I’m not someone who makes it my pet cause to go tell other parents to not spank their children. But I think the best parenting doesn’t use spanking. It’s natural for children to keep some secrets from their parents. I mean, this is so vague, right? Like, you know, is keeping a Christmas present a secret good? Right. It, I think it’s just natural for all of us to keep some thoughts and feelings and opinions secret. So I’m just gonna say agree. I don’t have super strong feelings on that. And it is kind of an open ended, vague question.
Jacob Winograd [00:35:44]:
Possessing marijuana for personal use should not be a criminal offense. Strongly agree. Something can be immoral. Like, I don’t, I don’t think it’s moral to get high or to get drunk, but I don’t think it’s the government. As long as you’re not, you know, if you get behind the, the wheel of a car and you’re a threat to somebody because of your, you are a risk. To hurt someone is different. But just possessing a substance or using a substance is not a crime. The prime function of schooling should be to equip the future generation to find jobs.
Jacob Winograd [00:36:14]:
Agree. People with Serious inheritable disabilities should not be allowed to reproduce. That sounds like a totalitarian nightmare waiting to happen. Who gets to define that? Like what disabilities should be the criteria. So no, I’m going to say disagree. The most important thing for children to learn is to accept discipline. The most important thing. I don’t know.
Jacob Winograd [00:36:42]:
What do you mean by discipline? Yeah, it’s just too vague. I want to say disagree. I’m second guessing myself now. It’s, it’s just so vague. Some of these questions are just like, I need to know what you mean by discipline. I think it’s good for children to learn self discipline. I think it’s good for children to learn how to listen and follow rules. I also think it’s good for children to experiment and to be open and not overly coddled, not overprotected and to encourage them to qu.
Jacob Winograd [00:37:08]:
Like, I think like discipline doesn’t mean that they don’t question authority in a respectful way. There’s a lot of nuance here. I think I’m going to say agree, but there’s a lot of nuance here. There are no savage and civilized peoples. There are only different cultures. I guess. Agree. That’s a very weirdly worded question.
Jacob Winograd [00:37:28]:
Those who are able to work and refuse the opportunity should not expect society’s support. I would generally agree with that. When you are troubled, it’s better not to think about it but to keep busy with more cheerful things. I disagree. If you are troubled, you should face your troubles. First generation immigrant can never be fully integrated within the. I mean to say never is just such a, like if you would say generally it’s hard for them, sure, but never fully integrated. And what does fully integrated mean? Now I’m going to say disagree.
Jacob Winograd [00:38:00]:
What’s good for the most successful corporations is always ultimately good for us. That’s just again, when you, when, when a lot of these things, when they’re couched in absolutes are just very weird questions to answer. I’m just going to say like, I hate to say I, I, as a libertarian, free market capitalist, I want to take the sides of the corporations. And I feel like this is a trap question written by someone with a left wing bend. But so like it makes me want to say agree even though I disagree with it. Right. It’s, it’s, it’s frustrating. No broadcasting institution, however independent its content, should receive public funding.
Jacob Winograd [00:38:38]:
I, I strongly agree. I don’t think anyone should receive public funding at all. How I see wider society, our civil liberties are being exclusively curbed in the name of counterterrorism. Strongly agree. Patriot act is a misnomer. A significant advantage of a one party state is that it avoids all the arguments that delay progress in a democratic political system. Disagree. I don’t, I, I think government should be small and so gridlock in democracy is better than like I would rather my, my government be slow to act and almost never act because it should only act when it’s just abundantly clear by consensus that that something must be done.
Jacob Winograd [00:39:22]:
And even then consensus doesn’t mean it’s right, but it’s, it’s. If you’re going to have a democratically run republic, that’s, that’s the lesser, the least worst way to. Yeah, it’s the least bad way to do it. Although the electronic age makes official surveillance easier, only wrongdoers need be worried. Strongly disagree. You should be creeped out by the government spying you all the time. And the government is not always going to just surveil on and impede on the rights and liberties and welfare of people who have committed actual wrongdoing. The death penalty should be an option for the most serious crimes.
Jacob Winograd [00:40:02]:
I’m going to say agree, but it should be an option. But there are very strong reasons to put the highest threshold of, of like so conviction for murder has a certain burden of proof that you have to establish. To enact the death penalty on murder should mean you have reached an even higher burden of proof than just conviction of murder. Because there are plenty of cases where people have been convicted of murder and on death throw but then while they’re waiting on death row, this is why they have death row. Why they have long time sometimes is because sometimes some evidence comes to light and it’s overturned. Right. So I think it should be an option for the most serious crimes, but only with the highest burden of proof provided. And even then I’m, I’m weary about giving the state that power.
Jacob Winograd [00:40:55]:
I, I generally do agree with the idea that it’s better to let 10 guilty men go than to convict one innocent person. So in a civilized society one must always have people above to be obeyed and people below to be commanded. That’s just such a. I, I’m, I’m not against hierarchies and I’m not against authority and I, I, I think law and order is good. But yeah, I’m, I’m not happy with the way this question is, is worded so man, I’m just gonna put disagree there. I don’t let it abstract art doesn’t, that doesn’t represent anything. Shouldn’t be considered art at all. That’s very subjective.
Jacob Winograd [00:41:42]:
I’m just going to say disagree. And criminal justice, punishment should be more important than rehabilitation. Strongly disagree. It is a waste of time to try to rehabilitate some criminals. Disagree. You don’t know if it’s a waste of time until you try it. So it’s almost by definition not a waste of time. You have to try to know if that person has hope or not.
Jacob Winograd [00:42:03]:
The business person and the manufacturer are more important than the writer and the artist. Disagree. Value is subjective. Art and writing are just as important to manufacturing and business because it’s all part of the economy. So mothers may have careers, but their first duty is to be homemakers. No, the first duty is to be moms, but that doesn’t mean that they are a homemaker. So I will. I will disagree with that.
Jacob Winograd [00:42:31]:
Almost all politicians promise economic growth, but we should heed the warnings of climate science that growth is detrimental to our efforts to curb global warming. Disagree. Strongly disagree. Sorry, that question was worded in a very weird way. But no, I don’t think that we should halt economic growth to curb global warming. Making peace with the establishment is an important aspect of maturity. I disagree. I don’t think making pe.
Jacob Winograd [00:42:59]:
I think there. There’s a point of, like, learning what you can change what you cannot. But I don’t think just making peace is the right way to look at it. Astrology accurately explains many things. Strongly disagree. You cannot be more without being religious. I would agree. Charity is better than Social Security as a means of.
Jacob Winograd [00:43:20]:
Sorry, I’m going to back up here. You cannot be moral without being religious. I’m going to actually disagree with that. You can be moral without being religious. Religious in the sense that this test means it. But it’s complicated. I. I think the culture and the religious culture that you are brought up in kind of shapes to be moral.
Jacob Winograd [00:43:37]:
Even if you are moral, being moral without being religious. All right. Charity is better than Social Security as a means of helping the genuinely disadvantaged. I strongly agree. Some people are naturally unlucky. I don’t really know what that means. Disagree. It is important that my child’s school instills religious values.
Jacob Winograd [00:43:57]:
So, I mean, like, I homeschool and I instill religious values. I guess if I didn’t homeschool, I’d want a school that did that. So I guess, agree. Sex outside marriage is usually immoral. What do you mean? You. So I can’t even answer this because to me it’s always immoral. Sex outside marriage. So if I say, if I say disagree, it makes it sound like I’m saying it’s never immoral.
Jacob Winograd [00:44:21]:
If I say agree. Okay, I’m going to say agree. I’ll say strongly agree. To be like, no, it’s not just usually, it’s always a same sex couple in a stable loving relationship should not be excluded from the possibility of child adoption. This is tricky. I don’t want the state involved in it. I would prefer that private adoption comp organizations exclude or at least prioritize giving children to opposite sex couples, heterosexual couples. So it’s hard to answer this one should not be excluded from whom? I really don’t know how to answer that.
Jacob Winograd [00:45:00]:
This is the last page. I might come back to that. I’m struggling to answer that. Pornography depicting consenting adult should be legal for the adult population. It should be legal. I think it’s immoral. But again, legal and illegal mean crime or not crime, aggression or not aggression. If there’s no aggression, there’s no crime.
Jacob Winograd [00:45:19]:
It should be legal. Doesn’t mean it’s moral. Doesn’t mean I have to support it with my money. Doesn’t mean I can’t advocate against it with social, nonviolent, non governmental means. But it just means that civil governance does not rightly rule on it. What goes on in a private bedroom between consenting adults is no business of the state. I’ll say agree. No one can feel naturally homosexual.
Jacob Winograd [00:45:44]:
That’s so vague. No one can feel naturally homo. I don’t think people are born gay. I’m gonna say agree these days openness about sex has gone too far. Oh man, that’s such a complicated question. I’m just gonna say agree. But it’s complicated. Same sex couple in a stable, loving relationship should not be excluded from the possibility of childhood.
Jacob Winograd [00:46:07]:
I mean like, compared to what is also the problem here? Like there’s all these weird hypotheticals you could come up for me with. But even then it’s like, why would there not be heterosexual couple? Like I’m just gonna say disagree because in general I just think there’s always going to be heterosexual couples who can be chosen. So I don’t want the exclusion to be done by government, but I just would prefer that homosexual couples not do. All right, now let’s see where you stand. Yeah, so this is kind of where I always end up. I’m going to screen share this for the video watchers. So you can see right there where I am at. Like I would think that I should be.
Jacob Winograd [00:46:53]:
I take this red dot and drag it all the way to the bottom and to the right. Because if you ask me like on any social scale, should the government be in it? I’m going to say no, the government shouldn’t be in it unless it’s aggression. And then left to right, I’m, I’m a capitalist through and through, so I should be over here. But you see the way those questions are asked. This is political compass.org and I, I think some of the questions are intriguing, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think they have an accurate scaling here. And it, it does put me in the right quadrant. So I guess it’s, it’s kind of like low resolution good enough to get you to the right quadrant probably. But I think it’s very inaccurate when it places you like where it’s going to put you within that quadrant.
Jacob Winograd [00:47:36]:
Because this, this says I’m almost on the end of pure libertarian to centrist. It says I’m closer to centrism than pure libertarian, which is just not true. Now, left to right, like, maybe I might not be all the way to the right depending on how you define that. And maybe I am more in this center right category than far right or true center on the left right scale. So that might be okay, but I would expect this to be closer to the bottom. But there’s a lot of questions where there’s nuance, where it doesn’t. The questions are not formulated to. I can’t give an honest answer that dives at the nuance.
Jacob Winograd [00:48:17]:
So. But hopefully beyond, like, I don’t think the result here is that important. I think the most important thing was just hearing me talk about the questions. And some of them are complicated questions. You get to see how a Christian libertarian thinks about these, how they would approach them, how they would answer or struggle to answer some of them. Because some of these questions, even though this is a political quiz that’s based on, not a binary, because it’s two axes and not just one, it’s not just left right, it’s left right and authoritarian and libertarian. It still asks a lot of questions in a very binary way. And I think you kind of were able to probably pick up on that if you’re paying attention.
Jacob Winograd [00:48:54]:
So, yeah, that’s it. Not any major. This was more of a fun episode. Right. I guess if I had a takeaway for you, it’s that, you know, politics is more complicated than you realize. And the most important lesson I keep on harping on is that, and I think this test failed to fully appreciate the depth of the libertarian critique here, which is that there’s a lot of things that can be deeply immoral but not criminal. So that that’s the distinction that we need to be thinking about as as Christians. That’s all I have for you guys for today.
Jacob Winograd [00:49:26]:
Hope you enjoyed it, Hope it was fun. Let me know what you thought about my my answers. If you agreed with them, disagreed with them, let me know in the comments. Like this video? Subscribe if you haven’t already and I’ll talk to you guys next time. Live at Peace. Live for Christ. Take care.
Knowledgeable Narrator [00:49:40]:
The Biblical Anarchy Podcast is a part of the Christians for Liberty Network, a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute. If you love this podcast, it helps us reach more with a message of freedom when you rate and review us on your favorite podcast apps and share with others. If you want to support the production of the Biblical Anarchy Podcast, please consider donating to the Libertarian Christian institute@biblical anarchypodcast.com where you can also sign up to receive special announcements and resources related to Biblical Anarchy. Thanks for tuning in.
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