Still Not the Anarchists Cookbook

  A friend of mine has written something brilliant, and this brilliance grew out of an ongoing email discussion that we were having about government and its relationship to the Christian.   Now I feel I have to do some explaining to the readers who weren’t privy to the discussion, and also to do justice to his remarks.  This friend is genuinely one of the most thoughtful guys I know, and I’m not just saying this because he reads my blog. Even when we disagree, he makes me think, and what more could you ask?

  Although I do consider myself a libertarian, he does not. He wrote extensively on what he feels is a huge flaw in libertarian philosophy, and made some excellent points. He has been, in the past, highly critical of some people who espouse a philosophy of liberty but practice a philosophy of rebellion, and it’s an important distinction to draw since it is after all a condition of the heart.  His take on most libertarians is that they say what they say not necessarily because they want liberty, but rather out of resentment towards any sort of authority (2 Pet 2:19, 2 Pet 2:10).  I think that’s a valid observation, although it’s painting with a broad brush since any label you could pick  would cover a lot of people who may not even agree with each other.  But let me throw in my two cents, and we’ll see what happens.  I apologize in advance if I am just hitting the high points of my overall thoughts on this, but I’m trying to cover a lot of ground here.

  The source of all liberty is God (Luke 4:18, 2 Cor 3:17).  The source of all authority is also God (1 Pet 3:22, Dan 3:28, Col 1:16).  I believe in ‘natural rights’ although I’ve always found the term a little odd, because my rights are not derived from rocks and trees and rivers and streams, they come from God.  They didn’t  pop into existence in 1776.  I have the right to property defined as assets that are specifically mine and God weighs in with a commandment of “Thou shalt not steal”. I have a right to life, and God   confirms this with a commandment “Thou shalt not kill”.  God couples these rights with accountability to him as to how I use them.   After all, I wasn’t given eyes so that I could look at other men’s wives; I was given eyes so that I could perceive and marvel at his creation.   I wasn’t given a voice so that I could gossip, I was given a voice to praise him with. Since they are my eyes and my voice, I can use them either way, but I will give an account either way (Gal 5:13).  

  In the meantime, he institutes governing authorities in my life and over my life.  These range from my parents when I was a kid to my pastor to the local government to the court system to the federal government.  Some people are born to better parents than others just as some are born under governments that allow more freedom than others.  Some of these   authorities are temporary, like my parents.  Some of these authorities can be changed, like my pastor.  Some require tremendous changes, like expatriation.  But the fact is, somebody is always going to be in charge of you, to one   degree or another, and this is God’s will.

  When a people turn their back on God, generally speaking , they lose liberty (Prov 29:2). This is merely God withdrawing his favor from a people who do not want him.  People get the government that reflects their willingness to serve God.  .  He does this in a variety of ways.  Sometimes he allows corrupt people to seize the reins of power. Sometimes he allows an invading army to come in.  All of these reductions in practical liberty are a result of God’s judgment on people who have misused their initial liberty.  My favorite Biblical example is the Babylonian captivity, in which the children of Israel were rewarded for their idolatry by having a barbarian horde drag their children off in chains.  This judgment went on for 70 years, and people saw their children, and grand children and great grandchildren grow up surrounded by idolatry because they had loved their idols so much. They had misused their liberty, so God took it away.  But it would be incorrect to cite this as an example that God is against liberty.  God is for both liberty, and authority, as they both work hand in hand in a people whose heart is after God.

 If all that’s true, and I believe that it is, , then the real issue isn’t what Obama is going to do. The real issue is what are you going to do. If you are really in favor of liberty, then you have an obligation to live right, and obey the whole counsel of God, not just the parts you like or the parts line up with your philosophy (Psalm 119:45).  The strong  (and frankly mystifying) anti-God streak present in a lot of libertarian circles is the Achilles heel of the modern liberty movement, and it is quite likely the reason why  we have not seen the sort of success God gave to the colonial Americans in re-establishing liberty.

  So what, as a Christian, should be my position towards the authority God has put over my life?  Should I be shouting for its overthrow?  Should I be instigating violence against it?  Should I browbeat and belittle it at every opportunity?  Scripture is pretty clear on this.  I am supposed to live the best life possible under my current situation, with the idea in sight that I will give account to God as to how I lived and fared under an oppressive corrupt system ( Eph 6:1-10).  If I am in a position of authority, I should strive to be just. (2 Sam 23:3, Heb 13:17).  I should police my own life to ensure that I am not the part of the reason for God’s favor turning from us.  I should pray for the authority over me, not send out mocking emails (Jude 1:8).  In those prayers, I don’t ask for their death, but rather that God will turn their hearts (Matt 5:44, Prov 21:1).  In the meantime, I should try my best to live out the commandments of God as much as I can, and live under these temporary circumstances in light of an eternal reality.  And for the record, I’m not particularly good at anything I just listed. I probably have a lot more rebellion in my heart than I realize.

  Now I currently live under a system where I still have some  ability to at least make my disagreement known.  I have the right, under this authority, to protest policy. I have the right to call my Congressman, to vote, to make my voice heard.  It is legitmate to point out when those in authority overstep their  authority, but I don’t have the right, as a Christian, to rise up against what God has put over me (Titus 3:1).  I am not required to be a yes-man or a lapdog to corrupt men, but I must be very careful as a Christian to not step over from disagreement into rebellion.  I could go a bit further into where I think that line is, but that’s a topic for another time.

   I also have friends  who are  'anarchists' and 'stateless libertarians'  and 'anarchocaps' and all sorts of other interesting labels. I encourage them to  look up the verses, and by all means join the discusion.

Rand is not Ron

  I was doing a radio interview recently regarding SWINDLED, and the host asked me what my impression was of  Rand Paul, the  junior Senator from Kentucky and heir-apparent to his father's philosophical empire. My response was simple , "I have Rand issues."
  Trust me, I've heard all the arguments in favor of the Rand Paul "libertarian when I need to be" philosophy. I've heard how he needs to "play the game" in order to "get anything done". Well that certainly implies that we need government to get anything done, doesn't it? I thought we  held that  liberty and freedom and individuals were the solutions, not partisan politics. I don't 'need ' Washington. All I 'need' them to do is leave me alone, a simple task they seem incapable of doing. Compromise  is what  got us where we are now, isn't it?
  I've  been pointed towards some of the  brave stands he has taken, such as his  drone filibuster. That's all  fine and good, but I would like to see a little more consistency in the man. He  has supported sanctions against Iran, which his father  claimed was an act of war.  Since Iran seems to be the new neocon litmus test, Rand's willingness to play  political games with the lives of other people's children seems to me to be  at odds with his  libertarian soundness in other areas. His last name isn't enough for me to give him carte blanche enough to hide in his father's shadow.
  A perfect example of my Rand issues came to light   in the Senates  recent unanaimous vote to  push us one step closer to war with Iran. The media has already started to portray the regime as Enemy of the Month, and already the  average amn on the street  is being programmed to think "We gotta do soemthign about those guys".  Trust me, unless something drastically changes, I  completely see us  parking  ourselves in yet another  country, toppling the regime, and   spilling  precious blood and  squandering  precious treasure in an attempt to control what happens afterwards.  This apparently is what we do now.
  I assume Mr. Paul ( the younger) has presidential aspirations, and maybe he saw how his father was shut out by the  establishment and he seeks to  endear himself   to the establishment while keeping his liberty  street cred.  But I  submit to you that such a tightrope act is not only impossible, but unwise, and won't win him any points with me.
  Rand, its not too late to  change course. Some of us are still watching to see how you turn out.

Glenn Beck and the Fatal Flaw

Someone gave me a copy of Glen Beck’s new book on gun control, entitled, appropriately enough, Control.  Now I do have some issues with Mr. Beck, which I won’t go into here. I don’t think it’s profitable for the people in the liberty movement to devour each other over perceived ideological impurities. Beck, love him or hate him, is a very visible voice that is, at least when his  handlers don’t pull his chain too hard, encouraging people to think about liberty and  he’s probably a fine fellow to read if you are slowly detoxing from the ‘government is good’ mindset.

  Having said that, the book is, over all, a very good collection of studies done by the gun control crowd which are then debunked, and quotes from the gun control crowd which are then examined in light of the  facts.  My issue with the book and it’s approach may seem like a minor point to some, but to me the very subtlety of it makes it a dangerous point.

  In it, over and over again, Mr. Beck makes the case that all we gun folks want is a reasonable exercise of our rights.  Nobody is asking for RPG’s to be legal, nobody wants a machine gun; all we want is what’s reasonable.  This sent up a big red flag for me. Who decides what’s reasonable?

  For Beck to say it’s unreasonable for me to  own a  grenade launcher is the ideological twin  of Feinstein  saying it’s unreasonable for me to own a  30 round magazine. In both cases, someone else has appealed to some external standard to decide for me what I should and should not have.

  Now I may well decide on my own, if I were allowed the choice, that a grenade launcher is impractical for me. I’ve made that decision with a variety of legal weapons, over issues of cost or practicality.  Ultimately I should be the one that decides what’s reasonable for me, not Glenn Beck and certainly not Feinstein.  In my estimation, anytime you surrender that decision to somebody else, whether you keep the articles you wanted to keep or not, you’ve lost the issue on a philosophical level.

  That philosophical surrender leads to your next loss as somebody else redefines what’s ‘reasonable’. Before long you’re disputing about what we’re asking to be legal. Since when do we ‘ask’ for freedom? As a friend of mine once said “a freedom that you have to ask for is a privilege’.

  If I was a  more conspiracy-minded sort of guy ( wait a minute here) I would entertain the notion that the Glenn Becks of the world are there to keep liberty folks from wandering too far off the reservation, and from thinking too deeply or from looking at things a certain way.  As long as we stay busy reacting to the other side’s definition of reasonable, and as long as we keep asking for permission to exercise  our rights, we can still be controlled. Or am I overthinking it?

The Greater Tragedy

The truly scary part of the events in Boston, and by extension the events like it over the last  few years, is how it brings out the absolute worst in an unthinking public.

  The news that 2 suspects had been identified and one of them had been killed by police was actually greeted with cheers by co-workers of mine.  One of the coworkers said mockingly to me “Would love to hear your take on their so called ‘civil liberties’ now.”  His position , reiterated to me multiple times over the recent past is that ‘terrorists’ have no civil rights, no right to a trial, just kill them. He has used this mental blind spot towards his own horrific statements  to celebrate the  drone bombing of innocent people in faraway lands. He has actually made the statement “It serves them right for living so close to  the bad guys.”

  So let me make myself very very plain here. A human being accused of a crime has the right to a trial regardless of what crime he is accused.   Notice I did not simply say ‘a citizen’ has that right, and I did that on purpose. My rights, and yours, do not come from a piece of paper, even if they are enumerated by that piece of paper. My rights and yours come from our humanity and a fair society will honor the rights of whoever happens to be under its jurisdiction at the moment, whether they be a ‘citizen’ or not.  To do less is to commit a crime against the accused.

  The state enjoys a monopoly on violence in many areas, and a monopoly on the ability to incarcerate.  I cannot lock my neighbor up in a cage if he transgresses against me, only the state enjoys that privilege.  In theory, to counterbalance that privilege, the burden of proof rests upon the state to make their case before a jury of my peers that a crime was committed and that it was committed by me.  If they cannot make that case, then I go free, even if everybody ‘knows’ I did it.

  When we cast that aside and we seriously contemplate extra-judicial killings for certain offenses, a couple of things happen.  First of all we sacrifice a piece of our humanity by our crimes against the accused. Secondly, that list of crimes where it’s acceptable to just ‘take them out back and shoot them’ always grows larger over time. Trials are expensive, and the system is cumbersome. It’s hard to get a conviction, and it should be, because an out of control police state is far more dangerous than an out of control bomber.