Dear Friends:
Adolf Hitler’s agenda-establishing Magnum Opus is Mien Kampf. In English, it translates into “My Struggle.” Hitler fashioned his struggle into a maniacal worldview built on destruction of all opposing ideologies and the implementation of his own millennial aspirations, the perpetuation of a thousand-year reich, based on the Nazi mythology of blood and soil. The transformation of society would come by way of force to eliminate all competing worldviews. “Hitler was obsessed with an eternal struggle between two hostile forces, the ‘Aryan’ and the ‘Jew’, the stakes of which were the survival of mankind and the planet.”1 The struggle goes much deeper.
Nazism has been described as a “political religion” that demands “of its adherents total submission of their consciences and surrender of their souls…. It was unconditional in its claims, inspired fanaticism and practiced extreme intolerance of those who thought otherwise. A ‘Church-state’ had emerged, with cults, dogmas and rites, whose beliefs consisted of a form of millenarianism….”2 According to the late William L. Shirer, under the leadership of Alfred Rosenberg, Martin Bormann, and Heinrich Himmler, “who were backed by Hitler, the Nazi regime intended eventually to destroy Christianity in Germany … and substitute the old paganism of the early tribal Germanic gods and the new paganism of the Nazi extremists.”3 Bormann, “one of the men closest to Hitler, said publicly in 1941, ‘National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable.’”4 For Bormann, the Nazi worldview was the final truth. “For this reason,” Bormann wrote, “we can do without Christianity.”
The Christian Churches build upon the ignorance of men and strive to keep large portions of the people in ignorance because only in this way can the Christian Churches maintain their power. On the other hand, National Socialism [Nazism] is based on scientific foundations. Christianity’s immutable principles, which were laid down almost two thousand years ago, have increasingly stiffened into life-alien dogmas. National Socialism [Nazism], however, if it wants to fulfill its task further, must always guide itself according to the newest data of scientific searches.5
William Shirer would later write: “We know now what Hitler envisioned for the German Christians: the utter suppression of their religion.”6 With Christianity out of the way, all was possible.
The Struggle Revisited
Islam has followed a similar pattern. Everything non-Muslim must either embrace all things Muslim or be destroyed. The history of Islam is the history of perpetual warfare and bloodshed in the name of an uncompromising ideology, an ideology that is religious. Islam is known by the practice of jihad. While modern-day Muslims, especially those in the Christian West, want to put a kind face on jihad by defining it as a “spiritual struggle against sin,” in reality, jihad is best understood as a militaristic struggle against infidelity. The kinder, gentler definition of jihad prevails in mainline historical sources seeking not to offend. One of the best examples of this is Karen Armstrong’s “The True, Peaceful Face of Islam.”7 Jacques Ellul, writing in the Foreword to The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam, does a masterful job in unraveling the many definitions and interpretations of jihad:
At times, the main emphasis is placed on the spiritual nature of this “struggle.” Indeed, it would merely indicate a “figure of speech” to illustrate the struggle that the believer has to wage against his own evil inclinations and his tendency to disbelief, and so on. Each man is engaged in a struggle within himself (which we Christians know well and thus find ourselves again on common ground!); and I am well aware that this interpretation was in fact maintained in some Islamic schools of thought. But, even if this interpretation is correct, it in no way covers the whole scope of jihad. At other times, one prefers to veil the facts and put them in parentheses. In a major encyclopedia, one reads phrases such as: “Islam expanded in the eighth and ninth centuries…”; “This or that country passed into Muslim hands….” But care is taken not to say how Islam expanded, how countries “passed into [Muslim] hands”…. Indeed, it would seem as if events happened by themselves, through a miraculous or amicable operation … Regarding this expansion, little is said about jihad. And yet it all happened through war! … [J]ihad is not a “spiritual war” but a real military war of conquest.8
Talk about jihad is minimalized similar to the way the transmigration of souls is obscured for eastern religious enthusiasts in the West. Few Americans would adopt a religion that taught that they might come back as a lowly cow. The emphasis is placed on reincarnation where one might have been a prince or princess in a past life and might move up the cosmic totem to a movie star ala Shirely MacLaine.9
The majority of people born into the Islamic faith have never read the Koran and know little of its violent origin and precepts. They are taught the practical side of Islam. A Muslim believes that Islam is the only true religion, therefore all of life must conform to its precepts. While there’s a great deal of talk about an Islamic paradise, for the most part, Islam is a this-world religion. It is this aspect of Islam that appeals to so many people who have become disenchanted with an abstracted and non-practical Christianity:
[Islam] is considered a this-worldly religion in contrast to Christianity, which is perceived as abstract in the extreme. Muhammad left his followers a political, social, moral, and economic program founded on religious precepts. Jesus, however, is said to have advocated no such program; it is claimed that the New Testament is so preoccupied with his imminent return that it is impractical for modern life.10
The Black Book of Communism
Of course, every worldview is just as unrelenting, comprehensive, and religious as Islam even though a personal, transcendent god is not at its center. Communism viewed the state in religious terms – God walking on earth – and had no problem eliminating tens of millions of non-compliant citizens to advance its worldview in the name of its god.
A large percentage of the generation that knew Joseph Stalin died as a result of his directives. These were purely political killings, “exterminations,” “liquidations” of “the enemy class” and “undesirable elements.” How many were involved? Solzhenitsyn’s estimates reach as high as sixty million. Robert Conquest, author of The Great Terror, fixed the number at well into the millions. It is doubtful if we well ever know the true total – God alone knows.11
In The Black Book of Communism, the total number killed by Communist regimes around the world approaches 100 million.12 Former Communists have described Communism as “the god that failed.”13 Even though millions were offered on the altar of atheism, Communism still had its apologists.14
The Struggle Continues
Libertines make the individual their god. Abortion, in the name of “personal freedom” and “individual choice,” is its promethean statement of personal sovereignty and god-like decision making. The majority of homosexual journalists abhor ideological competition. In a panel featuring top news executives in 2000, Michael Bradbury, managing editor of the Seattle Gay News, asked, “We have a tendency to always seek an opposing point of view for gay and lesbian civil rights issues…. how does the mainstream press justify that?” Moderator and CBS correspondent Jeffrey Kofman added: “The argument [is]: Why do we constantly see in coverage of gay and lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues the homophobes and the fag-haters quoted in stories when, of course, we don’t do that with Jews, blacks, et cetera?” These “journalists” want an ideological jihad on contrary opinion concerning their “sacred” lifestyle choice. Anyone who disagrees will be shouted down, forced out of long-held journalistic and educational positions, or run out of town.15 Many college campuses are filled with professors and procedures that denounce contrary opinions as an affront to all that’s liberally holy.
The True Struggle
One can even say that Christianity operates within the context of an “eternal struggle.” But while Christianity advances its worldview through internal change, by a real and discernable transformation of the heart, all competing worldviews must use external force. When critics of religion in general, unless it’s of a purely personal variety, point out that Islam and Christianity share similar goals, they fail to recognize that all worldviews are involved in an “eternal struggle” with competing worldviews. How should Christianity and Islam be distinguished? Jesus denounced the advancement of His kingdom through force. While He could have called on His servants to fight that He might not be delivered into the hands of a bloodthirsty mob (John 18:36), He refused. He rebuked Peter for using his sword (John 18:10-11). Paul tells us that we do not war against flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12). We do go to war, however. “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses” (II Corinthians 10:3-4).
SOURCES:
1 Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich: A New History (New York: Hill and Wang, 2000), 92.
2 Burleigh, The Third Reich, 252.
3 William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960), 240.
4 Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, 240.
5 Martin Bormann, “National Socialist and Christian Concepts Incompatible” in George L. Moss, Nazi Culture (New York Grosset & Dunlap, 1968), 244.
6 William L. Shirer, The Nightmare Years: 1930-1940 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1984), 156.
7 Karen Armstrong, “The True, Peaceful Face of Islam,” Time (October 1, 2001), 48.
8 Jacques Ellul, “Foreword,” Bat Ye’or, The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude, trans. Miriam Kochan and David Littman (Teaneck, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1996), 17-18, 19.
9 F. LaGard Smith, “ReIncarnation, Western Style,” Out on a Broken Limb (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1986), 69-87.
10 Larry Poston, “The Adult Gospel,” Christianity Today (August 20, 1990), 24.
11 Lloyd Billingsly, The Generation that Knew Not Josef: A Critique of Marxism and the Religious Left (Portland, OR: Multnomah Press, 1985), 37.
12 Stéphane Courtois, et al., The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 4.
13 Richard H. Crossman, ed., The God That Failed (Chicago, IL: Regnery Gateway, [1949] 1983).
14 S.J. Taylor, Stalin’s Apologist: Walter Duranty – The New York Times’s Man in Moscow (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).
15 Chuck and Donna McIlhenny, with Frank York, When the Wicked Seize the City (Lafayette, LA: Huntington House, 1993).
Respectfully,
Mark
Monday, December 27, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
The Economic Lessons of Bethlehem
Dear Friends:
At the heart of the Christmas story rests some important lessons concerning free enterprise, government, and the role of wealth in society.
Let’s begin with one of the most famous phrases: “There’s no room at the inn.” This phrase is often invoked as if it were a cruel and heartless dismissal of the tired travelers Joseph and Mary. Many renditions of the story conjure up images of the couple going from inn to inn only to have the owner barking at them to go away and slamming the door.
In fact, the inns were full to overflowing in the entire Holy Land because of the Roman Emperor’s decree that everyone be counted and taxed. Inns are private businesses, and customers are their lifeblood. There would have been no reason to turn away this man of royal lineage and his beautiful, expecting bride.
In any case, the second chapter of St. Luke doesn’t say that they were continually rejected at place after place. It tells of the charity of a single inn owner, perhaps the first person they encountered, who, after all, was a businessman. His inn was full, but he offered them what he had: the stable. There is no mention that the innkeeper charged the couple even one copper coin, though given his rights as a property owner, he certainly could have.
It’s remarkable, then, to think that when the Word was made flesh with the birth of Jesus, it was through the intercessory work of a private businessman. Without his assistance, the story would have been very different indeed. People complain about the “commercialization” of Christmas, but clearly commerce was there from the beginning, playing an essential and laudable role.
And yet we don’t even know the innkeeper’s name. In two thousand years of celebrating Christmas, tributes today to the owner of the inn are absent. Such is the fate of the merchant throughout all history: doing well, doing good, and forgotten for his service to humanity.
Clearly, if there was a room shortage, it was an unusual event and brought about through some sort of market distortion. After all, if there had been frequent shortages of rooms in Bethlehem, entrepreneurs would have noticed that there were profits to be made by addressing this systematic problem, and built more inns.
It was because of a government decree that Mary and Joseph, and so many others like them, were traveling in the first place. They had to be uprooted for fear of the emperor’s census workers and tax collectors. And consider the costs of slogging all the way “from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David,” not to speak of the opportunity costs Joseph endured having to leave his own business. Thus we have another lesson: government’s use of coercive dictates distort the market.
Moving on in the story, we come to Three Kings, also called Wise Men. Talk about a historical anomaly for both to go together! Most Kings behaved like the Roman Emperor’s local enforcer, Herod. Not only did he order people to leave their homes and foot the bill for travel so that they could be taxed. Herod was also a liar: he told the Wise Men that he wanted to find Jesus so that he could “come and adore Him.” In fact, Herod wanted to kill Him. Hence, another lesson: you can’t trust a political hack to tell the truth.
Once having found the Holy Family, what gifts did the Wise Men bring? Not soup and sandwiches, but “gold, frankincense, and myrrh.” These were the most rare items obtainable in that world in those times, and they must have commanded a very high market price.
Far from rejecting them as extravagant, the Holy Family accepted them as gifts worthy of the Divine Messiah. Neither is there a record that suggests that the Holy Family paid any capital gains tax on them, though such gifts vastly increased their net wealth. Hence, another lesson: there is nothing immoral about wealth; wealth is something to be valued, owned privately, given and exchanged.
When the Wise Men and the Holy Family got word of Herod’s plans to kill the newborn Son of God, did they submit? Not at all. The Wise Men, being wise, snubbed Herod and “went back another way” – taking their lives in their hands (Herod conducted a furious search for them later). As for Mary and Joseph, an angel advised Joseph to “take the child and his mother, and fly into Egypt.” In short, they resisted. Lesson number four: the angels are on the side of those who resist government.
In the Gospel narratives, the role of private enterprise, and the evil of government power, only begin there. Jesus used commercial examples in his parables (e.g., laborers in the vineyard, the parable of the talents) and made it clear that he had come to save even such reviled sinners as tax collectors.
And just as His birth was facilitated by the owner of an “inn,” the same Greek word “kataluma” is employed to describe the location of the Last Supper before Jesus was crucified by the government. Thus, private enterprise was there from birth, through life, and to death, providing a refuge of safety and productivity, just as it has in ours.
Respectfully,
Mark
At the heart of the Christmas story rests some important lessons concerning free enterprise, government, and the role of wealth in society.
Let’s begin with one of the most famous phrases: “There’s no room at the inn.” This phrase is often invoked as if it were a cruel and heartless dismissal of the tired travelers Joseph and Mary. Many renditions of the story conjure up images of the couple going from inn to inn only to have the owner barking at them to go away and slamming the door.
In fact, the inns were full to overflowing in the entire Holy Land because of the Roman Emperor’s decree that everyone be counted and taxed. Inns are private businesses, and customers are their lifeblood. There would have been no reason to turn away this man of royal lineage and his beautiful, expecting bride.
In any case, the second chapter of St. Luke doesn’t say that they were continually rejected at place after place. It tells of the charity of a single inn owner, perhaps the first person they encountered, who, after all, was a businessman. His inn was full, but he offered them what he had: the stable. There is no mention that the innkeeper charged the couple even one copper coin, though given his rights as a property owner, he certainly could have.
It’s remarkable, then, to think that when the Word was made flesh with the birth of Jesus, it was through the intercessory work of a private businessman. Without his assistance, the story would have been very different indeed. People complain about the “commercialization” of Christmas, but clearly commerce was there from the beginning, playing an essential and laudable role.
And yet we don’t even know the innkeeper’s name. In two thousand years of celebrating Christmas, tributes today to the owner of the inn are absent. Such is the fate of the merchant throughout all history: doing well, doing good, and forgotten for his service to humanity.
Clearly, if there was a room shortage, it was an unusual event and brought about through some sort of market distortion. After all, if there had been frequent shortages of rooms in Bethlehem, entrepreneurs would have noticed that there were profits to be made by addressing this systematic problem, and built more inns.
It was because of a government decree that Mary and Joseph, and so many others like them, were traveling in the first place. They had to be uprooted for fear of the emperor’s census workers and tax collectors. And consider the costs of slogging all the way “from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David,” not to speak of the opportunity costs Joseph endured having to leave his own business. Thus we have another lesson: government’s use of coercive dictates distort the market.
Moving on in the story, we come to Three Kings, also called Wise Men. Talk about a historical anomaly for both to go together! Most Kings behaved like the Roman Emperor’s local enforcer, Herod. Not only did he order people to leave their homes and foot the bill for travel so that they could be taxed. Herod was also a liar: he told the Wise Men that he wanted to find Jesus so that he could “come and adore Him.” In fact, Herod wanted to kill Him. Hence, another lesson: you can’t trust a political hack to tell the truth.
Once having found the Holy Family, what gifts did the Wise Men bring? Not soup and sandwiches, but “gold, frankincense, and myrrh.” These were the most rare items obtainable in that world in those times, and they must have commanded a very high market price.
Far from rejecting them as extravagant, the Holy Family accepted them as gifts worthy of the Divine Messiah. Neither is there a record that suggests that the Holy Family paid any capital gains tax on them, though such gifts vastly increased their net wealth. Hence, another lesson: there is nothing immoral about wealth; wealth is something to be valued, owned privately, given and exchanged.
When the Wise Men and the Holy Family got word of Herod’s plans to kill the newborn Son of God, did they submit? Not at all. The Wise Men, being wise, snubbed Herod and “went back another way” – taking their lives in their hands (Herod conducted a furious search for them later). As for Mary and Joseph, an angel advised Joseph to “take the child and his mother, and fly into Egypt.” In short, they resisted. Lesson number four: the angels are on the side of those who resist government.
In the Gospel narratives, the role of private enterprise, and the evil of government power, only begin there. Jesus used commercial examples in his parables (e.g., laborers in the vineyard, the parable of the talents) and made it clear that he had come to save even such reviled sinners as tax collectors.
And just as His birth was facilitated by the owner of an “inn,” the same Greek word “kataluma” is employed to describe the location of the Last Supper before Jesus was crucified by the government. Thus, private enterprise was there from birth, through life, and to death, providing a refuge of safety and productivity, just as it has in ours.
Respectfully,
Mark
Monday, December 13, 2010
You Have The Right To Remain Silent: Fifth Amendment Explained
Dear Friends:
The fifth amendment to the United States Constitution reads as follows:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
The right to remain silent is a fundamental principle of liberty. It gives American citizens better privacy. The burden falls on the accuser to build a case against a person. If the accuser does not meet that burden, the accused is free to go. The accused never, ever, is required to furnish any evidence or testimony against himself. In other words, liberty requires that you have the right to remain silent.
If the accused were forced to produce evidence that they did not commit an act, innocent people would be forced to prove a negative. Proving a negative is usually far more difficult, if not impossible to do. Anyone without an alibi would be convicted. No one could afford to spend even one minute alone in that kind of world. The right to remain silent preserves a functioning system of justice and a functioning society.
The fifth amendment to the United States Constitution does not say explicitly that you have the right to remain silent. It does say that you do not have to be a witness against yourself. This means that you cannot be compelled to reveal information that might implicate you in a crime.
Law-abiding citizens are particularly at risk because they think that the truth will set them free. They feel compelled that if they just tell their story they will be exonerated. This is not true. Numerous opportunities abound for an innocent individual to become entrapped by speaking with police.
Innocent people often overstate or understate some fact while vigorously defending their innocence. This makes their testimony technically untrue, or at least a prosecutor can make it look like it’s untrue. Once attention is called to the misstatement, the rest of the testimony is suspect because of the one untruth. This suspicion may be sufficient to land the innocent person in jail.
Police officers may make an innocent mistake and not remember correctly what you said. If you claim you told the cop one thing, and he claims you said another, the police officer will be believed over an accused any day. If you had said nothing, the cop would have to flat out lie that you said something. That is not likely to happen.
There may be a witness that will mistakenly identify you as the suspect in a crime. If you claim one thing that is absolutely true, there may be a solid witness that is honestly mistaken about seeing you. If your testimony contradicts theirs, the witness will be believed instead of the accused. If you don’t say anything, there will be nothing to contradict and the honesty of the accused will not be in play.
The federal criminal code contains over 10,000 crimes. State laws add even more crimes to the list. Not even the government knows them all. Many of these crimes are for seemingly innocent behavior, such as buying 2 packages of cold medicine, or possessing a flower that any other country in the world has outlawed. Thus, telling your true story about your seemingly completely innocent behavior could, in and of itself, implicate you in a crime, you should never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever speak to government agents, ever.
Criminals know that talking may incriminate them and so are much more aware of their right to silence and are much more inclined to use it. Innocent people like you aren’t aware of these dangers. And, if someone is truly innocent, they need to know this right and know how to use it far more than criminals do.
Under no circumstances should you ever talk to a police officer, fire fighter, ticket enforcer or street sweeper. All of them are government agents and can be a witness to use anything you say to them against you in a court of law.
The Supreme Court recently ruled that to invoke your right to silence, you have to break your silence and speak. They might need the fifth amendment explained to them again, but that is what they said. A simple phrase such as “I am invoking my right to remain silent” should suffice.
Remaining silent can give you better privacy when re-entering the country. Customs will still have the right to do a thorough search of you and your belongings irrespective of whether you invoke your right to remain silent. Threatening a search, or actually subjecting you to a search for invoking your rights is within their power.
To avoid being targeted for a search, it helps if you are not the only one invoking your rights. If lots of others are invoking their right to remain silent on a regular basis, no single individual will stand out any more than normal. The more people that exercise their rights, the better privacy for everybody.
The following web sites link to a couple of YouTube videos with more information on the right to remain silent. The two videos are actually parts 1 and 2 of a longer video. The first part – 27.4 minutes long – is a lecture by Mr. James Duane, a professor at Regent Law School and a former defense attorney. It the video, he tells you why you should never agree to be interviewed by the police. The second part – 21.2 minutes long – is of an experienced police officer telling you why you should never agree to be interviewed by the police.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=i8z7NC5sgik
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08fZQWjDVKE&feature=player_detailpage
The overwhelming majority of people convicted of a crime are convicted based upon their conduct and speech AFTER being confronted by law enforcement. It is always best not to speak to law enforcement.
Respectfully,
Mark
The fifth amendment to the United States Constitution reads as follows:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
The right to remain silent is a fundamental principle of liberty. It gives American citizens better privacy. The burden falls on the accuser to build a case against a person. If the accuser does not meet that burden, the accused is free to go. The accused never, ever, is required to furnish any evidence or testimony against himself. In other words, liberty requires that you have the right to remain silent.
If the accused were forced to produce evidence that they did not commit an act, innocent people would be forced to prove a negative. Proving a negative is usually far more difficult, if not impossible to do. Anyone without an alibi would be convicted. No one could afford to spend even one minute alone in that kind of world. The right to remain silent preserves a functioning system of justice and a functioning society.
The fifth amendment to the United States Constitution does not say explicitly that you have the right to remain silent. It does say that you do not have to be a witness against yourself. This means that you cannot be compelled to reveal information that might implicate you in a crime.
Law-abiding citizens are particularly at risk because they think that the truth will set them free. They feel compelled that if they just tell their story they will be exonerated. This is not true. Numerous opportunities abound for an innocent individual to become entrapped by speaking with police.
Innocent people often overstate or understate some fact while vigorously defending their innocence. This makes their testimony technically untrue, or at least a prosecutor can make it look like it’s untrue. Once attention is called to the misstatement, the rest of the testimony is suspect because of the one untruth. This suspicion may be sufficient to land the innocent person in jail.
Police officers may make an innocent mistake and not remember correctly what you said. If you claim you told the cop one thing, and he claims you said another, the police officer will be believed over an accused any day. If you had said nothing, the cop would have to flat out lie that you said something. That is not likely to happen.
There may be a witness that will mistakenly identify you as the suspect in a crime. If you claim one thing that is absolutely true, there may be a solid witness that is honestly mistaken about seeing you. If your testimony contradicts theirs, the witness will be believed instead of the accused. If you don’t say anything, there will be nothing to contradict and the honesty of the accused will not be in play.
The federal criminal code contains over 10,000 crimes. State laws add even more crimes to the list. Not even the government knows them all. Many of these crimes are for seemingly innocent behavior, such as buying 2 packages of cold medicine, or possessing a flower that any other country in the world has outlawed. Thus, telling your true story about your seemingly completely innocent behavior could, in and of itself, implicate you in a crime, you should never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever speak to government agents, ever.
Criminals know that talking may incriminate them and so are much more aware of their right to silence and are much more inclined to use it. Innocent people like you aren’t aware of these dangers. And, if someone is truly innocent, they need to know this right and know how to use it far more than criminals do.
Under no circumstances should you ever talk to a police officer, fire fighter, ticket enforcer or street sweeper. All of them are government agents and can be a witness to use anything you say to them against you in a court of law.
The Supreme Court recently ruled that to invoke your right to silence, you have to break your silence and speak. They might need the fifth amendment explained to them again, but that is what they said. A simple phrase such as “I am invoking my right to remain silent” should suffice.
Remaining silent can give you better privacy when re-entering the country. Customs will still have the right to do a thorough search of you and your belongings irrespective of whether you invoke your right to remain silent. Threatening a search, or actually subjecting you to a search for invoking your rights is within their power.
To avoid being targeted for a search, it helps if you are not the only one invoking your rights. If lots of others are invoking their right to remain silent on a regular basis, no single individual will stand out any more than normal. The more people that exercise their rights, the better privacy for everybody.
The following web sites link to a couple of YouTube videos with more information on the right to remain silent. The two videos are actually parts 1 and 2 of a longer video. The first part – 27.4 minutes long – is a lecture by Mr. James Duane, a professor at Regent Law School and a former defense attorney. It the video, he tells you why you should never agree to be interviewed by the police. The second part – 21.2 minutes long – is of an experienced police officer telling you why you should never agree to be interviewed by the police.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=i8z7NC5sgik
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08fZQWjDVKE&feature=player_detailpage
The overwhelming majority of people convicted of a crime are convicted based upon their conduct and speech AFTER being confronted by law enforcement. It is always best not to speak to law enforcement.
Respectfully,
Mark
Monday, December 6, 2010
Render unto God what is God’s. You, too, Caesar.
Dear Friends:
Most people who refer to the phrase “render unto Caesar” don’t consider the biblical account in its context – either its biblical context, or historical context. This causes considerable misunderstanding and confusion about the issue of legitimate Authority among Christians.
The Context
The confrontation (Matthew 22:15-22) takes place in the setting of a larger narrative about Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Matthew 21:1-23:39) referred to as Palm Sunday in present day. As soon as he arrived he entered the temple “and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, ‘It is written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer,” but you make it a den of robbers’” (Matthew 21:12-13). And the very next interaction he had in each of the synoptic Gospels was when the Chief Priests and the elders (most likely Pharisees) met him walking in the temple and demanded to see His badge: “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” He confounded them with His own question and got out of the situation.
So here’s a guy who allowed Himself to be worshipped as He enters Jerusalem, He entered riding on a donkey indicating the fulfillment of a messianic prophecy, received the appellative “Son of David,” by force drove out the moneychangers, et al, and healed people in the temple. The Jewish leaders had been watching Him and these things He did for some time – they had been sending out delegations to inquire about this fringe messianic activity as early as John the Baptist (John 1:19, 24) – so the priests and elders knew very well about Jesus and how powerful He was.
And yet, as the blindness of pride would have it, they stood before Him demanding He give an account of His authority to them.
Of course, this implies that they had the authority to demand that accounting. And there is some legitimacy to their demand, since they did hold the offices of the Priesthood and of Moses seat, which Jesus himself later recognized right before he scolded their hypocrisy in Matthew 23. But they had not, could not, see that Jesus was the True High Priest and the True Shepherd of Israel. And thus, they stood at loggerheads (temporarily anyway) over the issues of Sovereignty and Authority.
The whole narrative in which this story sits deals with this theme of the greater authority of heaven versus earthly authority, and the inability of the Jews to tell the difference. This is the very issue Jesus used to confound the temple leaders when they ask Him about His authority. But the issue is that heaven has authority which man does not; man’s authorization pales in comparison to God’s. The episode and some attendant parables stung these leaders, and they began to plot, particularly the Pharisees, on how they might “entangle him in his words.” (This concept and the very word “entangle” or “snare” is used throughout Proverbs in relation to the words or lips or mouth of the wicked and the fool.)
The Tax Plot
It is with great irony that when they took their first shot – which is this question about Caesar’s tax – that they set up a dichotomy between heavenly authority and earthly authority. Where had they learned that tactic? It’s as if they counseled together trying to find a way to trick and trap him intellectually, and finally decided, “Hey, let’s use the same trick against Him that He used against us.”
Their sole aim, however, was to discredit him. The Pharisees were a popular movement aimed at the lay people. They were a combination religious and political movement among the people. When the people turned in masses to follow Jesus, and He then confounded the Pharisees, the Pharisees began to lose their audience. In fact, three times this larger narrative emphasizes the fact that they were jealous of Jesus’ popularity and yet could not answer Him or arrest Him because they feared the people. So they plotted, partly out of revenge because He had bested them once publically, but mainly because He had encroached on their turf – stealing their audience, their thunder – so they felt.
So they applied the trick: “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”
Notice a few things here: First, they set up the question by characterizing Jesus as one faithful to God only, and who is not a respecter of persons. “Not swayed by appearances” in the KJV is, “regardest not the person of men”; the literal text is “you do not look into the face of men.” This is a direct reference to Leviticus 19:15:
“Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect [receive, cp. Luke 20:20] the person [“face” in Hebrew and LXX] of the poor, nor honour the person [face] of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour.”
Most of the commentators seem to think the leaders’ approach to Jesus is mere flattery, as if this country bumpkin from Galilee who receives praise from the people will fall prey to false praise. But this is not the case – He has already outwitted them once – He is no shallow praise-seeker, and they know this by now. They were not trying flatter Him; they were trying to trap Him with God’s Word, as if they said, “You truly serve God only and refuse to bow to any man. Therefore, is it right to give tribute to Caesar?” If the way of God says do not respect persons whether small or mighty, then is it right to pay respect in the form of giving or paying tax to mighty Caesar who is a man? This is the nature of the challenge.
Second, notice they asked a legal question, “Is it lawful….” The word itself leaves it unclear whether they meant Roman law or God’s law, but since it was already Roman law to pay the tax, the question certainly aimed at the law of “the way of God.” The question, again, and the Greek [exestin; cp. exousia, Matthew 21:23] makes it clear that the issue is one of fundamental authority. Does Caesar have legitimate authority to demand tribute? Do we have authority from God to pay to Caesar?
Thirdly, the reference is not to “taxes” in general as so many of the translations have it, but to a particular tax called the kānsos – a Greek version of a Latin word we translate as census. This had nothing to do with sales taxes, duties, commerce or business taxes, or travel tolls, etc. This particularly had to do with the “poll tax” or “head tax” which was based on a census of the people and had to be paid on all persons including women and slaves. And by law it had to be paid by means of Roman coinage.
The Message of the Coin
Jesus responded immediately by calling them hypocrites, obviously because they were hardly sincere in asking. Luke (20:23) refers to their panourgia, meaning something like willingness “to do anything.” The Herodians, especially, played the hypocrites, for they were of the party that supported one of the most ruthless tax collectors in Judean history, Herod. Herod the Great had so heavily taxed the Jewish people that Caesar himself demanded Herod lower taxes in the region. Herod refused, and so Caesar called for a census to be taken in the realm. It is this enrollment of the people, likely, that appears in the story of Jesus birth (Luke 2:1-7).
The trap of the question is well understood: If Jesus said “No” He could be in trouble with the Roman authorities for encouraging tax evasion and treason against Caesar; if Jesus said “Yes” He would certainly lose the support of the people who saw Him as a Messiah against Roman occupation. Either way, the Pharisees and Herodians would win; so they asked; and the implication is “Speak into this microphone when you answer.” They wanted everyone to hear.
Since the census had to be paid by Roman coinage, Jesus asked to be shown that particular money – the “tribute money” or literally, “the money of the census.” And they brought Him such a Roman coin: a “denarius.”
“Whose likeness and inscription is this?”
They knew already they were in trouble. Jesus simply didn’t throw around the “image” or “likeness” casually. In fact, it only appears in all of the Gospels in their accounts of this story. Why so sparse? Because it is a technical term, a term that has a very specific place in the Jewish religion: “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth” (Exodus 20:4).
Jesus also specifically made them note the inscription on the coin. This was perhaps more damning than the image. The denarius itself – most likely a coin from the current Emperor – carried not only his image but an inscription that read TIBERIUS CAESAR DIVI AGUSTI FILIUS AGUSTUS (“Tiberius Caesar August Son of the August God”), and the back side continued PONTIFEX MAXIMUS (“High Priest”). If this was not a graven image of a false god, nothing is. And Jesus made it a point to enter these facts into the record.
The Currency of Idolatry
Keep in mind, this confrontation begins all the way back in Matthew 21:23 and is taking place in the temple. There was a particular taboo about having the idols in the temple itself. Had not Israel been sent into exile for such infractions? Why did these holy men of Israel, Pharisees and Herodians, now have idols in the temple? Why were they so readily able to produce a denarius when Jesus asked? Hypocrites indeed!
This hit the Pharisees acutely in that they prided themselves in purity and separation from non-biblical practices. A real poke at their bid for popularity, that! – look everyone, the “Pure” “Holy” Pharisees are carrying false gods through their own Temple! By the way, did you say you wanted me to speak into the microphone?
Jesus could have had some real fun here at the expense particularly of the Sadducees (surely close by, as they are featured in the next confrontation) who were the Chief Priests of the Temple, including the High Priest. What are you doing carrying a coin around the Temple which bears an inscription that calls Caesar the “High Priest”? You are supposed to be God’s High Priest! Since when did you abdicate your office for the pagan ruler?
And it was certainly not an isolated incident, all of the people carried Roman coinage every day. For example, the Temple itself had a yearly head tax that all Jews had to pay, and it was a half-shekel of silver. But they were forbidden to pay that tax with Roman coins. This is why there were moneychangers in the Temple to begin with. They had a virtual monopoly on special silver coins that were acceptable to pay the Temple tax; and as with any monopoly, you can understand how high the exchange was: these guys were extorting people for specialized coinage which they had to have. This is why Jesus called them robbers: they were literally extorting the people. As they were engaged in a forced exchange, they grew rich in terms of Roman coins.
You can imagine, then, that they had tables and bags filled with Roman denarii throughout the Temple courts. In fact, the moneychangers all wore one of these coins in their ear as a mark of their trade. [They have ears but can’t hear (because of their idols)!] You can imagine that passers-by and pilgrims to the Temple saw plenty of displays of these images right there in the Temple itself. You can imagine, also, that as Jesus overturned the chairs and tables and poured out the money, that the streets rang with sound of silver pings and clangs as coins rolled down the stone pavements. [Some (Caesar’s) heads are gonna roll!]
The entire Jewish civilization had given in to the usage of idolatrous Roman coins. Roman currency was the basis of their commerce. They had thus, despite whatever idolatry they judged to be involved, accepted the social benefit of Caesar’s rule, and thus legitimized it.
Thus, the only answer Jesus’ opponents could give was “Caesar’s.” Not only did the bare facts of the coin itself require this answer, obviously, but it also related to the total dominance over political and economic life throughout the Jewish culture. The coining of money is a symbol of power. The acceptance of that money as common currency is submission on the part of the people to that power. (This does not address the issue of legal tender.)
“Is it lawful?” “Why are you asking? You already do it all day every day.”
Payback Time
But now that Jesus had them in the headlights, He fired the fatal shot: “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
Important here in Jesus’ answer is the verb: “render.” The opponents had worded the question wrongly: Is it lawful to “give” or to “pay”? The word is different. The Pharisees’ word is didomi “give”; Jesus says not “give” but apodidomi “give back” or “pay up.” It is a term used for paying what is due to someone, or what belongs to them to begin with. This was an acknowledgement of several things, all of which would have angered the Jews to have to admit: 1) Caesar owns the coin, it is His; 2) the usage of Caesar’s property to your own benefit implies your debt to him to the extent that you do; and 3) Caesar’s enforcement of the recalling of this money (the tax itself) meant that the Jewish people were not free as they pretended, but under foreign bondage still (a clear implication that God’s judgment was still upon them).
They profited by the means, so they had no right to refuse the tax on the means on economic grounds. They enjoyed the order of the Roman Empire, so they had no right to refuse on political grounds. They carried his money right into their own Temple despite the implications, so they had no right to refuse on theological grounds (at least not without repentance). So the Pharisees stood before Jesus and before the crowds, themselves entangled by His words: “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s.”
The Greater Debt
But, also, render “to God the things that are God’s.”
What most commentators miss or ignore here is that Jesus implied a clear argument a fortiori from the lesser to the greater – if it is true for the lesser case of the man Caesar, how much more true is it for the Greater. If Caesar has authority to demand payment, how much more authority does God have? Instead of this, most commentators see something more of a dichotomy between the two instead of a hierarchy. The State has authority over here, and God has authority over there (your thoughts, emotions, and energies).
But this is not the point, for at least two very outstanding reasons: the image and the inscription. These are the two things to which Jesus called attention in regard to the coin. They are both overtly theological concepts.
We have already mentioned the idea of image in regard to the commandment against graven images. Why was this a commandment? Man is to make no graven image of any living thing, and certainly nothing to be used in reference to divinity. Why not? Because the creation of living things is the exclusive Province of God; and the placing of His image is the exclusive Province of God. The man who creates images in this way is both demeaning God Himself through the inadequate representation, and himself attempting to play the part of God by being the Creator and the Image-giver.
In contrast, God is the one who places His image: He places it on man; or more properly, He creates man in His image and likeness. All men bear this image.
The same is true with God’s inscription. We bear His Word written on our hearts, though the fall had some consequence on that. Paul indicates this is true even of the natural man (Romans 2:14-15). This was especially true of the Pharisees: they literally wore the word of God on their heads and the arms. This appears in Matthew 23:5, when Jesus criticizes them for making “broad their phylacteries.” A phylactery is a small box in which is kept small parchments of Scripture (Exodus 13:1-10; Deuteronomy 6:4-9; 11:13-21). Some of the Jews took the command literally: “these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes…” (Deuteronomy 6:6, 8). So they literally wore that section of Scripture in a small box on their forehead, between their eyes, and on their forearm like a wristwatch. The Pharisees went over the top in this regard, using larger boxes than everyone else to show how much more eager they were to recall God’s Word.
This was true yet even more relevant to the priests: the High Priest wore a golden plate on his hat that read HOLINESS TO THE LORD (Exodus 28:36). He as well literally bore the inscription of God as representative of the entire people of God.
So literally, outwardly, whose inscription was on these guys? The theological implications of both the image and the inscription would have been obvious to everyone listening. The impact of the lesson would have nearly made the Pharisees a laughingstock among the people. Yet it would have been a stark wake-up call to everyone listening.
Yes, the people had something of a legitimate debt to Caesar, but Jesus’ lesson was a far cry from saying that the authority of the State is separate or removed in some way from the authority of God, or that we must wait until the end of time until the State comes under God’s authority and judgment. The lesson here is much more challenging, much more comprehensive.
The lesson is, more fully, that all men bear God’s image and God’s inscription. We are all God’s coinage. We all belong wholly to God. All men must “render to God what is God’s.” All men. The Pharisees, Sudducees, the Herods, the masses, and even Caesar himself. Caesar has as much obligation to “render unto God” – bow and submit to God – as everyone else. He has as much obligation to love his neighbors and to obey God’s law as everyone else. He is not a god or a high priest, he is not the source of law and providence; he, like all men, is a man subject to God Almighty’s providence, and God’ Law, and God’s High Priest, Jesus Christ. He has as much obligation to obey; in fact, he has a greater obligation to obey because he represents multiple people in a public office.
Render unto God. All of Jesus listeners would not only have understood the concepts involved, they would have immediately understood the theological nature of the idea of rendering to God. It appeared throughout the psalms of the Jewish worship:
“My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation: I will pay [render; same Greek word] my vows before them that fear him” (Psalm 22:25).
“Thy vows are upon me, O God: I will render praises unto thee” (Psalm 56:12).
“I will go into thy house with burnt offerings: I will pay [render] thee my vows” (Psalm 66:13 KJV).
“Vow, and pay [render] unto the LORD your God” (Psalm 76:11 KJV).
“I will pay my vows unto the LORD now in the presence of all his people (Psalm 116:18).
It even appeared in the Levitical law: where the Levites were set apart for Temple service, they were presented before the High Priest and “offered” or “rendered” unto God as an offering (Leviticus 8:13). Their whole persons were rendered unto God.
Authority, Loyalty, and Freedom
Man is free, because God made him that way. Man is not free to the extent that he renders all to God; and societies are in bondage to that same extent. Therefore, where human institutions infringe upon God’s law, you have a decision about loyalty to competing authorities. We must obey God and not men, even to death if necessary in necessary matters. Yet we can denounce and resist tyranny in other matters as an expression of our loyalty to God, and of the proper place of human governments.
It is not improper, therefore, for other men to call Caesar to be accountable before God. And, it should not be considered unlawful for other men to refuse either to use or to accept as payment any particular currency, no matter what human image or inscription is upon it. We must resist tyranny, though never through violent revolution, and there are many non-violent ways to do so.
By what Authority do you do these things? What believer in God ever truly has to question what Authority?
“The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains, the world, and those who dwell in it” (Psalm 24:1). God says, “[E]very beast of the forest is Mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird of the mountains, and everything that moves in the field is Mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world is Mine, and all it contains” (Psalm 50:9-12).
Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, sure. But render unto God what is God’s.
Respectfully,
Mark
Most people who refer to the phrase “render unto Caesar” don’t consider the biblical account in its context – either its biblical context, or historical context. This causes considerable misunderstanding and confusion about the issue of legitimate Authority among Christians.
The Context
The confrontation (Matthew 22:15-22) takes place in the setting of a larger narrative about Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Matthew 21:1-23:39) referred to as Palm Sunday in present day. As soon as he arrived he entered the temple “and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, ‘It is written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer,” but you make it a den of robbers’” (Matthew 21:12-13). And the very next interaction he had in each of the synoptic Gospels was when the Chief Priests and the elders (most likely Pharisees) met him walking in the temple and demanded to see His badge: “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” He confounded them with His own question and got out of the situation.
So here’s a guy who allowed Himself to be worshipped as He enters Jerusalem, He entered riding on a donkey indicating the fulfillment of a messianic prophecy, received the appellative “Son of David,” by force drove out the moneychangers, et al, and healed people in the temple. The Jewish leaders had been watching Him and these things He did for some time – they had been sending out delegations to inquire about this fringe messianic activity as early as John the Baptist (John 1:19, 24) – so the priests and elders knew very well about Jesus and how powerful He was.
And yet, as the blindness of pride would have it, they stood before Him demanding He give an account of His authority to them.
Of course, this implies that they had the authority to demand that accounting. And there is some legitimacy to their demand, since they did hold the offices of the Priesthood and of Moses seat, which Jesus himself later recognized right before he scolded their hypocrisy in Matthew 23. But they had not, could not, see that Jesus was the True High Priest and the True Shepherd of Israel. And thus, they stood at loggerheads (temporarily anyway) over the issues of Sovereignty and Authority.
The whole narrative in which this story sits deals with this theme of the greater authority of heaven versus earthly authority, and the inability of the Jews to tell the difference. This is the very issue Jesus used to confound the temple leaders when they ask Him about His authority. But the issue is that heaven has authority which man does not; man’s authorization pales in comparison to God’s. The episode and some attendant parables stung these leaders, and they began to plot, particularly the Pharisees, on how they might “entangle him in his words.” (This concept and the very word “entangle” or “snare” is used throughout Proverbs in relation to the words or lips or mouth of the wicked and the fool.)
The Tax Plot
It is with great irony that when they took their first shot – which is this question about Caesar’s tax – that they set up a dichotomy between heavenly authority and earthly authority. Where had they learned that tactic? It’s as if they counseled together trying to find a way to trick and trap him intellectually, and finally decided, “Hey, let’s use the same trick against Him that He used against us.”
Their sole aim, however, was to discredit him. The Pharisees were a popular movement aimed at the lay people. They were a combination religious and political movement among the people. When the people turned in masses to follow Jesus, and He then confounded the Pharisees, the Pharisees began to lose their audience. In fact, three times this larger narrative emphasizes the fact that they were jealous of Jesus’ popularity and yet could not answer Him or arrest Him because they feared the people. So they plotted, partly out of revenge because He had bested them once publically, but mainly because He had encroached on their turf – stealing their audience, their thunder – so they felt.
So they applied the trick: “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”
Notice a few things here: First, they set up the question by characterizing Jesus as one faithful to God only, and who is not a respecter of persons. “Not swayed by appearances” in the KJV is, “regardest not the person of men”; the literal text is “you do not look into the face of men.” This is a direct reference to Leviticus 19:15:
“Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect [receive, cp. Luke 20:20] the person [“face” in Hebrew and LXX] of the poor, nor honour the person [face] of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour.”
Most of the commentators seem to think the leaders’ approach to Jesus is mere flattery, as if this country bumpkin from Galilee who receives praise from the people will fall prey to false praise. But this is not the case – He has already outwitted them once – He is no shallow praise-seeker, and they know this by now. They were not trying flatter Him; they were trying to trap Him with God’s Word, as if they said, “You truly serve God only and refuse to bow to any man. Therefore, is it right to give tribute to Caesar?” If the way of God says do not respect persons whether small or mighty, then is it right to pay respect in the form of giving or paying tax to mighty Caesar who is a man? This is the nature of the challenge.
Second, notice they asked a legal question, “Is it lawful….” The word itself leaves it unclear whether they meant Roman law or God’s law, but since it was already Roman law to pay the tax, the question certainly aimed at the law of “the way of God.” The question, again, and the Greek [exestin; cp. exousia, Matthew 21:23] makes it clear that the issue is one of fundamental authority. Does Caesar have legitimate authority to demand tribute? Do we have authority from God to pay to Caesar?
Thirdly, the reference is not to “taxes” in general as so many of the translations have it, but to a particular tax called the kānsos – a Greek version of a Latin word we translate as census. This had nothing to do with sales taxes, duties, commerce or business taxes, or travel tolls, etc. This particularly had to do with the “poll tax” or “head tax” which was based on a census of the people and had to be paid on all persons including women and slaves. And by law it had to be paid by means of Roman coinage.
The Message of the Coin
Jesus responded immediately by calling them hypocrites, obviously because they were hardly sincere in asking. Luke (20:23) refers to their panourgia, meaning something like willingness “to do anything.” The Herodians, especially, played the hypocrites, for they were of the party that supported one of the most ruthless tax collectors in Judean history, Herod. Herod the Great had so heavily taxed the Jewish people that Caesar himself demanded Herod lower taxes in the region. Herod refused, and so Caesar called for a census to be taken in the realm. It is this enrollment of the people, likely, that appears in the story of Jesus birth (Luke 2:1-7).
The trap of the question is well understood: If Jesus said “No” He could be in trouble with the Roman authorities for encouraging tax evasion and treason against Caesar; if Jesus said “Yes” He would certainly lose the support of the people who saw Him as a Messiah against Roman occupation. Either way, the Pharisees and Herodians would win; so they asked; and the implication is “Speak into this microphone when you answer.” They wanted everyone to hear.
Since the census had to be paid by Roman coinage, Jesus asked to be shown that particular money – the “tribute money” or literally, “the money of the census.” And they brought Him such a Roman coin: a “denarius.”
“Whose likeness and inscription is this?”
They knew already they were in trouble. Jesus simply didn’t throw around the “image” or “likeness” casually. In fact, it only appears in all of the Gospels in their accounts of this story. Why so sparse? Because it is a technical term, a term that has a very specific place in the Jewish religion: “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth” (Exodus 20:4).
Jesus also specifically made them note the inscription on the coin. This was perhaps more damning than the image. The denarius itself – most likely a coin from the current Emperor – carried not only his image but an inscription that read TIBERIUS CAESAR DIVI AGUSTI FILIUS AGUSTUS (“Tiberius Caesar August Son of the August God”), and the back side continued PONTIFEX MAXIMUS (“High Priest”). If this was not a graven image of a false god, nothing is. And Jesus made it a point to enter these facts into the record.
The Currency of Idolatry
Keep in mind, this confrontation begins all the way back in Matthew 21:23 and is taking place in the temple. There was a particular taboo about having the idols in the temple itself. Had not Israel been sent into exile for such infractions? Why did these holy men of Israel, Pharisees and Herodians, now have idols in the temple? Why were they so readily able to produce a denarius when Jesus asked? Hypocrites indeed!
This hit the Pharisees acutely in that they prided themselves in purity and separation from non-biblical practices. A real poke at their bid for popularity, that! – look everyone, the “Pure” “Holy” Pharisees are carrying false gods through their own Temple! By the way, did you say you wanted me to speak into the microphone?
Jesus could have had some real fun here at the expense particularly of the Sadducees (surely close by, as they are featured in the next confrontation) who were the Chief Priests of the Temple, including the High Priest. What are you doing carrying a coin around the Temple which bears an inscription that calls Caesar the “High Priest”? You are supposed to be God’s High Priest! Since when did you abdicate your office for the pagan ruler?
And it was certainly not an isolated incident, all of the people carried Roman coinage every day. For example, the Temple itself had a yearly head tax that all Jews had to pay, and it was a half-shekel of silver. But they were forbidden to pay that tax with Roman coins. This is why there were moneychangers in the Temple to begin with. They had a virtual monopoly on special silver coins that were acceptable to pay the Temple tax; and as with any monopoly, you can understand how high the exchange was: these guys were extorting people for specialized coinage which they had to have. This is why Jesus called them robbers: they were literally extorting the people. As they were engaged in a forced exchange, they grew rich in terms of Roman coins.
You can imagine, then, that they had tables and bags filled with Roman denarii throughout the Temple courts. In fact, the moneychangers all wore one of these coins in their ear as a mark of their trade. [They have ears but can’t hear (because of their idols)!] You can imagine that passers-by and pilgrims to the Temple saw plenty of displays of these images right there in the Temple itself. You can imagine, also, that as Jesus overturned the chairs and tables and poured out the money, that the streets rang with sound of silver pings and clangs as coins rolled down the stone pavements. [Some (Caesar’s) heads are gonna roll!]
The entire Jewish civilization had given in to the usage of idolatrous Roman coins. Roman currency was the basis of their commerce. They had thus, despite whatever idolatry they judged to be involved, accepted the social benefit of Caesar’s rule, and thus legitimized it.
Thus, the only answer Jesus’ opponents could give was “Caesar’s.” Not only did the bare facts of the coin itself require this answer, obviously, but it also related to the total dominance over political and economic life throughout the Jewish culture. The coining of money is a symbol of power. The acceptance of that money as common currency is submission on the part of the people to that power. (This does not address the issue of legal tender.)
“Is it lawful?” “Why are you asking? You already do it all day every day.”
Payback Time
But now that Jesus had them in the headlights, He fired the fatal shot: “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
Important here in Jesus’ answer is the verb: “render.” The opponents had worded the question wrongly: Is it lawful to “give” or to “pay”? The word is different. The Pharisees’ word is didomi “give”; Jesus says not “give” but apodidomi “give back” or “pay up.” It is a term used for paying what is due to someone, or what belongs to them to begin with. This was an acknowledgement of several things, all of which would have angered the Jews to have to admit: 1) Caesar owns the coin, it is His; 2) the usage of Caesar’s property to your own benefit implies your debt to him to the extent that you do; and 3) Caesar’s enforcement of the recalling of this money (the tax itself) meant that the Jewish people were not free as they pretended, but under foreign bondage still (a clear implication that God’s judgment was still upon them).
They profited by the means, so they had no right to refuse the tax on the means on economic grounds. They enjoyed the order of the Roman Empire, so they had no right to refuse on political grounds. They carried his money right into their own Temple despite the implications, so they had no right to refuse on theological grounds (at least not without repentance). So the Pharisees stood before Jesus and before the crowds, themselves entangled by His words: “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s.”
The Greater Debt
But, also, render “to God the things that are God’s.”
What most commentators miss or ignore here is that Jesus implied a clear argument a fortiori from the lesser to the greater – if it is true for the lesser case of the man Caesar, how much more true is it for the Greater. If Caesar has authority to demand payment, how much more authority does God have? Instead of this, most commentators see something more of a dichotomy between the two instead of a hierarchy. The State has authority over here, and God has authority over there (your thoughts, emotions, and energies).
But this is not the point, for at least two very outstanding reasons: the image and the inscription. These are the two things to which Jesus called attention in regard to the coin. They are both overtly theological concepts.
We have already mentioned the idea of image in regard to the commandment against graven images. Why was this a commandment? Man is to make no graven image of any living thing, and certainly nothing to be used in reference to divinity. Why not? Because the creation of living things is the exclusive Province of God; and the placing of His image is the exclusive Province of God. The man who creates images in this way is both demeaning God Himself through the inadequate representation, and himself attempting to play the part of God by being the Creator and the Image-giver.
In contrast, God is the one who places His image: He places it on man; or more properly, He creates man in His image and likeness. All men bear this image.
The same is true with God’s inscription. We bear His Word written on our hearts, though the fall had some consequence on that. Paul indicates this is true even of the natural man (Romans 2:14-15). This was especially true of the Pharisees: they literally wore the word of God on their heads and the arms. This appears in Matthew 23:5, when Jesus criticizes them for making “broad their phylacteries.” A phylactery is a small box in which is kept small parchments of Scripture (Exodus 13:1-10; Deuteronomy 6:4-9; 11:13-21). Some of the Jews took the command literally: “these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes…” (Deuteronomy 6:6, 8). So they literally wore that section of Scripture in a small box on their forehead, between their eyes, and on their forearm like a wristwatch. The Pharisees went over the top in this regard, using larger boxes than everyone else to show how much more eager they were to recall God’s Word.
This was true yet even more relevant to the priests: the High Priest wore a golden plate on his hat that read HOLINESS TO THE LORD (Exodus 28:36). He as well literally bore the inscription of God as representative of the entire people of God.
So literally, outwardly, whose inscription was on these guys? The theological implications of both the image and the inscription would have been obvious to everyone listening. The impact of the lesson would have nearly made the Pharisees a laughingstock among the people. Yet it would have been a stark wake-up call to everyone listening.
Yes, the people had something of a legitimate debt to Caesar, but Jesus’ lesson was a far cry from saying that the authority of the State is separate or removed in some way from the authority of God, or that we must wait until the end of time until the State comes under God’s authority and judgment. The lesson here is much more challenging, much more comprehensive.
The lesson is, more fully, that all men bear God’s image and God’s inscription. We are all God’s coinage. We all belong wholly to God. All men must “render to God what is God’s.” All men. The Pharisees, Sudducees, the Herods, the masses, and even Caesar himself. Caesar has as much obligation to “render unto God” – bow and submit to God – as everyone else. He has as much obligation to love his neighbors and to obey God’s law as everyone else. He is not a god or a high priest, he is not the source of law and providence; he, like all men, is a man subject to God Almighty’s providence, and God’ Law, and God’s High Priest, Jesus Christ. He has as much obligation to obey; in fact, he has a greater obligation to obey because he represents multiple people in a public office.
Render unto God. All of Jesus listeners would not only have understood the concepts involved, they would have immediately understood the theological nature of the idea of rendering to God. It appeared throughout the psalms of the Jewish worship:
“My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation: I will pay [render; same Greek word] my vows before them that fear him” (Psalm 22:25).
“Thy vows are upon me, O God: I will render praises unto thee” (Psalm 56:12).
“I will go into thy house with burnt offerings: I will pay [render] thee my vows” (Psalm 66:13 KJV).
“Vow, and pay [render] unto the LORD your God” (Psalm 76:11 KJV).
“I will pay my vows unto the LORD now in the presence of all his people (Psalm 116:18).
It even appeared in the Levitical law: where the Levites were set apart for Temple service, they were presented before the High Priest and “offered” or “rendered” unto God as an offering (Leviticus 8:13). Their whole persons were rendered unto God.
Authority, Loyalty, and Freedom
Man is free, because God made him that way. Man is not free to the extent that he renders all to God; and societies are in bondage to that same extent. Therefore, where human institutions infringe upon God’s law, you have a decision about loyalty to competing authorities. We must obey God and not men, even to death if necessary in necessary matters. Yet we can denounce and resist tyranny in other matters as an expression of our loyalty to God, and of the proper place of human governments.
It is not improper, therefore, for other men to call Caesar to be accountable before God. And, it should not be considered unlawful for other men to refuse either to use or to accept as payment any particular currency, no matter what human image or inscription is upon it. We must resist tyranny, though never through violent revolution, and there are many non-violent ways to do so.
By what Authority do you do these things? What believer in God ever truly has to question what Authority?
“The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains, the world, and those who dwell in it” (Psalm 24:1). God says, “[E]very beast of the forest is Mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird of the mountains, and everything that moves in the field is Mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world is Mine, and all it contains” (Psalm 50:9-12).
Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, sure. But render unto God what is God’s.
Respectfully,
Mark
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Secular Religious Ideology Gone Mad
Dear Friends:
The Constitution requires that “No person … shall be eligible to [the office of President] who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States” (Art. II, Sec. 1). Does this mean that a candidate shouldn’t be questioned about his abilities and limited experience if he is constitutionally qualified at just thirty-six years old? Ronald Reagan was thought by some to be too old. He was 69 when he took office in 1981. Reagan turned concern about his age on its head during his 1984 re-election campaign when he promised not to “exploit, for political purposes,” the “youth and inexperience” of his 56-year-old Democratic challenger, Walter Mondale. The age question haunted John McCain as well. Questions about age are important, and so are questions about religion.
While Article VI does prohibit a “religious test,” the same article states, “the Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution.” Bound to and by what? Nineteenth-century church historian Philip Schaff wrote, “‘in recognizing and requiring an official oath’ for both state and federal officeholders, ‘the Constitution recognizes the Supreme Being, to whom the oath is a solemn appeal.’”1 George Washington seems to have understood this principle since he followed his affirmation to “execute the office of President of the United States and … preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” with “So help me God.”2
Oaths and affirmations were deemed important to many of the founders since they bound a person’s word to a higher authority beyond the sanctions of mere mortals who have no jurisdiction over the soul. For example, in his Essay on Toleration (1685), John Locke exempted atheists from the civil protection of toleration when it came to holding political office by arguing that an atheist who denies that God exists could not be expected to tolerate what he believes to be a myth:
Lastly, those are not all to be tolerated who deny the being of God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all; besides also, those that by their atheism undermine and destroy all religion, can have no pretence of religion whereupon to challenge the privilege of toleration.3
In recent years, the words “so help me God” have been challenged. They were stricken from the written oath of office that Notaries take in order to serve in the state of Florida. “Those words never should have been there to begin with,” Ken Rouse, general counsel for the Florida Department of State, said. Religious leaders from Miami to Jacksonville were shocked. “This is frightening, that one person could sway the state to change things like that,” said Glen Owens, assistant executive director of the Florida Baptist Convention in Jacksonville. “How can they completely abolish a system of doing things for one person?” The Reverend Gerard LaCerra, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Miami understands the implications of the ruling. “What are we supposed to base our commitments on if something like this is removed? The state?”4
In 1788, Henry Abbot, a delegate to the North Carolina convention that was considering the Federal Constitution, understood the implications of an oath without specific religious content: “[I]f there be no religious test required, pagans, deists, and Mahometans might obtain office among us, and the senators and representatives might all be pagans…. Some are desirous to know how and by whom they are to swear, since no religious tests are required – whether they are to swear by Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, Proserpine, or Pluto?”5 Abbot feared what would happen to America if it ever claimed that the God of the Bible was somehow irrelevant to good government. Given the long-term goals of Islam, a day could come when America became officially Islamic.
What few people seem to realize is that there are all types of non-religious belief systems that hold to an absolutist ideology and use the power of the State to impose that ideology on the rest of us. Civil governments can confiscate property, tax earnings, put us in prison, send us off to fight in wars, mandate how many MPG our cars must get, order what type of toilets we can use, require that foods contain no trans fats, and so much more. The law of the land is enforced by the full authority of the civil government that makes the law. As long as a law is on the books, that law is absolute. A law doesn’t have to be tied to any particular traditional understanding of religion to be made a law and enforced by the power of the State. In fact, the above short list of government freedom-inhibiting laws is not tied to any particular religious creed, but the result is still the same – absolutism!
A secular ideology can be just as sacrosanct and absolute as any religious doctrine or creedal formulation but with a significant difference:
Pure ideology differs greatly from the Judeo-Christian tradition that locates sin in the human will; ideologists disdain such ideas and cite evil “structures,” “institutions,” and “systems” as the problem. Sin is political, not personal. Get the structure right, so the argument goes, and all will be well with individuals.6
These “structures” can only be restructured and made right by increased government control, bureaucratic management, the curtailment of freedoms, and, as always, more money. We are told that these new freedom-limiting laws are for our own good and the good of society. Liberals have always believed that civil government should be in the personal management business since their ideas for other people are always for their good. They don’t see their laws as ideologically (religiously) motivated. Take the case of taxing soft drinks in San Francisco.7 The mayor says that high fructose corn syrup leads to obesity which puts a strain on the city’s health care system. This proposed law is overtly religious in that it is designed to “save the children” from the potential harm of sugar-saturated soft drinks. What will be next? Pizza? Potato chips? Fries and a Big Mac? Video games and computers that contribute to a sedentary lifestyle among young and old?8 In the same city, a different kind of ideology protects sex acts that result in numerous sexually transmitted diseases that cost billions of dollars in healthcare costs and thousands of lives each year in America.9 The homosexual religious ideology has its own set of anti-blasphemy laws. Anyone who gets caught uttering a negative word about homosexuality is immediately censored. Hate-crime legislation is designed to silence all criticism. These are marks of a secular religious ideology gone mad.
Christians who understand the proper mix of religion and politics would argue that it’s not the role of civil government to micro-manage people’s lives. There is no prescription in the Bible to use the power of civil government to control a person’s diet through taxation. Long before there were high fructose corn syrup drinks, there were fat people. The king of Eglon was fat (Judges 3:17, 22), and Eli is described as “old and heavy” (I Samuel 4:18). The Bible warns against drunkenness and gluttony (Proverbs 23:20-21), but there is no call to tax alcoholic beverages and food in an attempt to modify these behaviors. A change in these behaviors comes by way of persuasion and the marketplace.
The biblical view of change is that what people believe and understand must be restructured before there will be any appreciable change in a person’s lifestyle. Self-government (self-control) is the operating principle. Christians who want to use the power of the State to manage people for what they perceive are good causes are as misguided and dangerous as secularists who believe that their ideology will save us.
In the end, all ideologies are absolute, but it’s only with Christianity that civil government is limited. Christians need to understand this when considering voting for people who promise to use the power of civil government for the supposed common good.
SOURCES:
1 Daniel Dreisbach, “The Constitution’s Forgotten Religion Clause: Reflections on the Article VI Religious Test Ban,” Journal of Church and State 38:2 (Spring 1996), 289.
2 See Forrest Church, So Help Me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle Over Church and State (Orlando: Harcourt, Inc., 2007), 445-449.
3 John Locke, Two Treatises of Civil Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration, ed. Ian Shapiro (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 246.
4 “‘God’ Removed from Notaries’ Oath,” The Kansas City Star (February 18, 1992), 2A.
5 Henry Abbot, North Carolina ratifying convention: Elliot’s Debates, 4:192.
6 Lloyd Billingsley, The Absence of Tyranny: Recovering Freedom in Our Time (Portland, OR: Multnomah, 1986), 71.
7 Jesse McKinley, “San Francisco’s Mayor Proposes Fee on Sales of Sugary Soft Drinks,” The New York Times (December 18, 2007).
8 The “Wii” is being used in retirement homes to get the elderly up and moving. The bowling, golfing, and tennis games are great exercise. “The Wii has become so popular at Sedgebrook [retirement community] that on Sunday afternoon there will be a video game bowling tournament in the lounge. More than 20 residents have signed up to compete.” (Dave Wischnowsky, “Wii bowling knocks over retirement home,” Chicago Tribune [February 16, 2007]).
9 John R. Diggs, “The Health Risks of Gay Sex,” Corporate Research Council (2002).
Respectfully,
Mark
The Constitution requires that “No person … shall be eligible to [the office of President] who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States” (Art. II, Sec. 1). Does this mean that a candidate shouldn’t be questioned about his abilities and limited experience if he is constitutionally qualified at just thirty-six years old? Ronald Reagan was thought by some to be too old. He was 69 when he took office in 1981. Reagan turned concern about his age on its head during his 1984 re-election campaign when he promised not to “exploit, for political purposes,” the “youth and inexperience” of his 56-year-old Democratic challenger, Walter Mondale. The age question haunted John McCain as well. Questions about age are important, and so are questions about religion.
While Article VI does prohibit a “religious test,” the same article states, “the Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution.” Bound to and by what? Nineteenth-century church historian Philip Schaff wrote, “‘in recognizing and requiring an official oath’ for both state and federal officeholders, ‘the Constitution recognizes the Supreme Being, to whom the oath is a solemn appeal.’”1 George Washington seems to have understood this principle since he followed his affirmation to “execute the office of President of the United States and … preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” with “So help me God.”2
Oaths and affirmations were deemed important to many of the founders since they bound a person’s word to a higher authority beyond the sanctions of mere mortals who have no jurisdiction over the soul. For example, in his Essay on Toleration (1685), John Locke exempted atheists from the civil protection of toleration when it came to holding political office by arguing that an atheist who denies that God exists could not be expected to tolerate what he believes to be a myth:
Lastly, those are not all to be tolerated who deny the being of God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all; besides also, those that by their atheism undermine and destroy all religion, can have no pretence of religion whereupon to challenge the privilege of toleration.3
In recent years, the words “so help me God” have been challenged. They were stricken from the written oath of office that Notaries take in order to serve in the state of Florida. “Those words never should have been there to begin with,” Ken Rouse, general counsel for the Florida Department of State, said. Religious leaders from Miami to Jacksonville were shocked. “This is frightening, that one person could sway the state to change things like that,” said Glen Owens, assistant executive director of the Florida Baptist Convention in Jacksonville. “How can they completely abolish a system of doing things for one person?” The Reverend Gerard LaCerra, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Miami understands the implications of the ruling. “What are we supposed to base our commitments on if something like this is removed? The state?”4
In 1788, Henry Abbot, a delegate to the North Carolina convention that was considering the Federal Constitution, understood the implications of an oath without specific religious content: “[I]f there be no religious test required, pagans, deists, and Mahometans might obtain office among us, and the senators and representatives might all be pagans…. Some are desirous to know how and by whom they are to swear, since no religious tests are required – whether they are to swear by Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, Proserpine, or Pluto?”5 Abbot feared what would happen to America if it ever claimed that the God of the Bible was somehow irrelevant to good government. Given the long-term goals of Islam, a day could come when America became officially Islamic.
What few people seem to realize is that there are all types of non-religious belief systems that hold to an absolutist ideology and use the power of the State to impose that ideology on the rest of us. Civil governments can confiscate property, tax earnings, put us in prison, send us off to fight in wars, mandate how many MPG our cars must get, order what type of toilets we can use, require that foods contain no trans fats, and so much more. The law of the land is enforced by the full authority of the civil government that makes the law. As long as a law is on the books, that law is absolute. A law doesn’t have to be tied to any particular traditional understanding of religion to be made a law and enforced by the power of the State. In fact, the above short list of government freedom-inhibiting laws is not tied to any particular religious creed, but the result is still the same – absolutism!
A secular ideology can be just as sacrosanct and absolute as any religious doctrine or creedal formulation but with a significant difference:
Pure ideology differs greatly from the Judeo-Christian tradition that locates sin in the human will; ideologists disdain such ideas and cite evil “structures,” “institutions,” and “systems” as the problem. Sin is political, not personal. Get the structure right, so the argument goes, and all will be well with individuals.6
These “structures” can only be restructured and made right by increased government control, bureaucratic management, the curtailment of freedoms, and, as always, more money. We are told that these new freedom-limiting laws are for our own good and the good of society. Liberals have always believed that civil government should be in the personal management business since their ideas for other people are always for their good. They don’t see their laws as ideologically (religiously) motivated. Take the case of taxing soft drinks in San Francisco.7 The mayor says that high fructose corn syrup leads to obesity which puts a strain on the city’s health care system. This proposed law is overtly religious in that it is designed to “save the children” from the potential harm of sugar-saturated soft drinks. What will be next? Pizza? Potato chips? Fries and a Big Mac? Video games and computers that contribute to a sedentary lifestyle among young and old?8 In the same city, a different kind of ideology protects sex acts that result in numerous sexually transmitted diseases that cost billions of dollars in healthcare costs and thousands of lives each year in America.9 The homosexual religious ideology has its own set of anti-blasphemy laws. Anyone who gets caught uttering a negative word about homosexuality is immediately censored. Hate-crime legislation is designed to silence all criticism. These are marks of a secular religious ideology gone mad.
Christians who understand the proper mix of religion and politics would argue that it’s not the role of civil government to micro-manage people’s lives. There is no prescription in the Bible to use the power of civil government to control a person’s diet through taxation. Long before there were high fructose corn syrup drinks, there were fat people. The king of Eglon was fat (Judges 3:17, 22), and Eli is described as “old and heavy” (I Samuel 4:18). The Bible warns against drunkenness and gluttony (Proverbs 23:20-21), but there is no call to tax alcoholic beverages and food in an attempt to modify these behaviors. A change in these behaviors comes by way of persuasion and the marketplace.
The biblical view of change is that what people believe and understand must be restructured before there will be any appreciable change in a person’s lifestyle. Self-government (self-control) is the operating principle. Christians who want to use the power of the State to manage people for what they perceive are good causes are as misguided and dangerous as secularists who believe that their ideology will save us.
In the end, all ideologies are absolute, but it’s only with Christianity that civil government is limited. Christians need to understand this when considering voting for people who promise to use the power of civil government for the supposed common good.
SOURCES:
1 Daniel Dreisbach, “The Constitution’s Forgotten Religion Clause: Reflections on the Article VI Religious Test Ban,” Journal of Church and State 38:2 (Spring 1996), 289.
2 See Forrest Church, So Help Me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle Over Church and State (Orlando: Harcourt, Inc., 2007), 445-449.
3 John Locke, Two Treatises of Civil Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration, ed. Ian Shapiro (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 246.
4 “‘God’ Removed from Notaries’ Oath,” The Kansas City Star (February 18, 1992), 2A.
5 Henry Abbot, North Carolina ratifying convention: Elliot’s Debates, 4:192.
6 Lloyd Billingsley, The Absence of Tyranny: Recovering Freedom in Our Time (Portland, OR: Multnomah, 1986), 71.
7 Jesse McKinley, “San Francisco’s Mayor Proposes Fee on Sales of Sugary Soft Drinks,” The New York Times (December 18, 2007).
8 The “Wii” is being used in retirement homes to get the elderly up and moving. The bowling, golfing, and tennis games are great exercise. “The Wii has become so popular at Sedgebrook [retirement community] that on Sunday afternoon there will be a video game bowling tournament in the lounge. More than 20 residents have signed up to compete.” (Dave Wischnowsky, “Wii bowling knocks over retirement home,” Chicago Tribune [February 16, 2007]).
9 John R. Diggs, “The Health Risks of Gay Sex,” Corporate Research Council (2002).
Respectfully,
Mark
Monday, November 22, 2010
The Difference Between Capitalism and Socialism
Dear Friends:
We hear a lot these days about the differences between capitalism and socialism. So, I looked into the two systems of thought and came across the following story which, I believe, quite accurately illustrates the difference between these two diametrically opposite worldviews.
A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be very liberal in her beliefs and ideals. As such, she was very much in favor of higher taxes to support more government programs. In other words, she strongly advocated a redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor in an effort to make everybody equal. Like any good socialist, equality was her primary motive.
She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch conservative capitalist, a feeling she openly expressed to him. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his, what he had worked hard to earn.
One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated such to her father.
He responded by asking, “How are you doing in school?”
Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily, “I have a 4.0 GPA. It’s tough to maintain. I am taking a very difficult course load. I am constantly studying. I have no time to go out and party like other people I know. I don’t even have time for a boyfriend. And I don’t really have many college friends at all because I spend all my time studying.”
Her father listened and then asked, “And how is your friend Audrey doing?”
She replied, “Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes. She never studies. She barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She’s always invited to all the parties and lots of times she doesn’t even show up for classes because she’s too hung over.’
Her wise father asked his daughter, “Why don’t you go to the Dean’s office and ask him to deduct 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.”
The daughter, visibly shocked by her father’s suggestion, angrily fired back, “That’s a crazy idea, and how would that be fair! I’ve worked really hard for my grades! I’ve invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!”
The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, “Now you’re thinking like a capitalist.”
Believe it or not, our Creator has a lot to say about the proper ordering of society, including economics. Scripture encourages capitalism and discourages socialism. The place to start is with the eighth commandment which is based upon the concept of private property. “You shall not steal” [Exodus 20:15; Deuteronomy 5:19]. Stealing, or theft, is taking another man’s property by coercion, fraud, or without his uncoerced consent. Cheating, harming property, or destroying its value is also theft. It is not necessary for the victim to know of the theft for it to be unlawful. Thus, to ride a train or bus without paying one’s fare is theft, even though the transportation company is unaware of the act.
Our Creator’s order clearly includes private property. It also clearly approves of godly wealth. According to Proverbs 13:11, “Dishonest money dwindles away, but he who makes money little by little makes it grow.” The warning of God’s Word is against the proud who forget God in their wealth, not against the fact of wealth [Deuteronomy 8:17-18]. God blesses His saints with prosperity and wealth, as He did Job, Abraham, David, Solomon, and others. Wealth is one of the possible blessings of obedience to God’s law [Psalm 112:3]. It is arrogant and ungodly wealth which is condemned [James 5:1-6]. Wealth is an aspect of God’s blessing of His faithful ones: “The blessing of the LORD brings wealth, and He adds no trouble to it” [Proverbs 10:22]. The godly pursuit of property and wealth is thus fully legitimate.
Even Jesus taught that we should be rewarded for our hard work [Matthew 25:14-30; Luke 19:12-27]. And the principle of the harvest is based upon this same idea – you reap what you sow and in multiples thereof [Galatians 6:7]. Honest hard work results in Godly rewards (until the civil government interferes).
When the Israelites left captivity in Egypt, God (through Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law) revealed to Moses the perfect order of civil government [Exodus 18:13-27]. You see, there were only a few million men, women and children wandering around in the desert. I am sure there were a few “bad apples” in the bunch. So, Moses had to have some way of dealing with the law-breakers. That is why he needed a civil government. That is why civil government was created – to punish the law-breakers [Romans 13:3-4]. The purpose of civil government has not changed (at least not in our Creator’s eyes because God does not change – he doesn’t have to – he is perfect – any change would make Him less than perfect).
God, through Jethro, suggested that Moses set up a hierarchy of judges over the people. Judges “over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens” [Exodus 18:21; Deuteronomy 1:15] The people were to choose these judges [Deuteronomy 1:13]. They were to choose “men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain” [Exodus 18:21]. As long as the people applied these criteria and chose capable and righteous men, justice was swift and fair, and freedom and liberty abounded. But when the people chose dishonest men – no justice, no liberty, loss of freedom.
The Israelites lived as a nation for over 400 years under this form of civil government. During all of this time, no taxes were levied. Revenue for the operation of the civil government was generated by fines paid by the law-breakers. There was no need for prisons as incarceration was never punishment for a crime. The only jails that existed were used to separate potentially violent criminals from the general population until they could be properly tried for their crime. A Godly government has no need to collect taxes or for prisons.
Then, after over 400 years, the Israelites rejected God and His government when they wanted a “king … like all the other nations … to lead [them] and go out before [them] and fight [their] battles” [I Samuel 8:20]. And the Israelites forgot the eighth commandment. And oppressive taxation soon followed. The forced confiscation of property became so oppressive that after about 120 years, the nation of Israel split into two nations [I Kings 12:1-24; II Chronicles 10:1-11:4] and ultimately were taken into captivity because of their rejection of God and His law.
Socialism rejects this principle of private property and as such, changes the eighth commandment to “You shall not steal except by the majority vote of the people.” It is a man-made system of government resulting in oppressive taxation which takes away our freedom and liberty. It eliminates employment opportunities, causes price inflation, and many other economic woes.
Some of you, as support for taxation by the civil government, might point out that Jesus said to “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s” [Matthew 22:21; Mark 12:17; Luke 20:25]. It is true. Jesus did say that. And Paul restated Jesus’ principle in Romans 13:6-7.
However, you must remember that during the time both Jesus and Paul walked on the earth, the Israelites, because of their rejection of God and His law, were subjected to the man-made pagan law structure of Rome (Caesar worship). Jesus and Paul were reinforcing the fact that the Israelites were being punished for their disobedience and therefore had to live according to the man-made law structure of a perverse government. The Israelites were forced to pay homage to their captors as long as they rejected God and His law. So, part of Israel’s punishment for rejecting God and His law was forced confiscation of their property by a foreign pagan nation. In fact, every time Israel turned their back on God, the nation was subjected through captivity to a socialistic pagan foreign nation’s laws. In God’s Word, socialism is always associated with paganism.
Private property is a power which our Creator entrusts to man as a stewardship, because it is our Creator’s intention that man should have and exercise power unto the end that the earth be subdued and man’s dominion over the earth under our Creator be established. God gives to the civil government its due power in its domain – the punishment of law breakers. Private property is a power given to man to be used under God and to His glory.
If a nation applies God’s principles as revealed in His Word, then there will be no need for taxes. And, the principle of private property as established by the eighth commandment will result in more freedom and liberty than we have ever experienced in our lifetimes. This is what our founding fathers had in mind back in 1776. What gold is to money, God’s law is to liberty. Without God’s law, men, unions, corporations, and civil governments feel free to be a law unto themselves – to play god. Failure to teach the law of God paves the way to tyranny.
As our founding father James Madison said of God’s law:
We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God. [Cited by F. Nymeyer, in Progressive Calvinism (South Holland, Ill.: Libertarian Press, 1958), IV, 31.]
What about you? Are you a capitalist, or a socialist? Which do you prefer?
Respectfully,
Mark
We hear a lot these days about the differences between capitalism and socialism. So, I looked into the two systems of thought and came across the following story which, I believe, quite accurately illustrates the difference between these two diametrically opposite worldviews.
A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be very liberal in her beliefs and ideals. As such, she was very much in favor of higher taxes to support more government programs. In other words, she strongly advocated a redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor in an effort to make everybody equal. Like any good socialist, equality was her primary motive.
She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch conservative capitalist, a feeling she openly expressed to him. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his, what he had worked hard to earn.
One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated such to her father.
He responded by asking, “How are you doing in school?”
Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily, “I have a 4.0 GPA. It’s tough to maintain. I am taking a very difficult course load. I am constantly studying. I have no time to go out and party like other people I know. I don’t even have time for a boyfriend. And I don’t really have many college friends at all because I spend all my time studying.”
Her father listened and then asked, “And how is your friend Audrey doing?”
She replied, “Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes. She never studies. She barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She’s always invited to all the parties and lots of times she doesn’t even show up for classes because she’s too hung over.’
Her wise father asked his daughter, “Why don’t you go to the Dean’s office and ask him to deduct 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.”
The daughter, visibly shocked by her father’s suggestion, angrily fired back, “That’s a crazy idea, and how would that be fair! I’ve worked really hard for my grades! I’ve invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!”
The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, “Now you’re thinking like a capitalist.”
Believe it or not, our Creator has a lot to say about the proper ordering of society, including economics. Scripture encourages capitalism and discourages socialism. The place to start is with the eighth commandment which is based upon the concept of private property. “You shall not steal” [Exodus 20:15; Deuteronomy 5:19]. Stealing, or theft, is taking another man’s property by coercion, fraud, or without his uncoerced consent. Cheating, harming property, or destroying its value is also theft. It is not necessary for the victim to know of the theft for it to be unlawful. Thus, to ride a train or bus without paying one’s fare is theft, even though the transportation company is unaware of the act.
Our Creator’s order clearly includes private property. It also clearly approves of godly wealth. According to Proverbs 13:11, “Dishonest money dwindles away, but he who makes money little by little makes it grow.” The warning of God’s Word is against the proud who forget God in their wealth, not against the fact of wealth [Deuteronomy 8:17-18]. God blesses His saints with prosperity and wealth, as He did Job, Abraham, David, Solomon, and others. Wealth is one of the possible blessings of obedience to God’s law [Psalm 112:3]. It is arrogant and ungodly wealth which is condemned [James 5:1-6]. Wealth is an aspect of God’s blessing of His faithful ones: “The blessing of the LORD brings wealth, and He adds no trouble to it” [Proverbs 10:22]. The godly pursuit of property and wealth is thus fully legitimate.
Even Jesus taught that we should be rewarded for our hard work [Matthew 25:14-30; Luke 19:12-27]. And the principle of the harvest is based upon this same idea – you reap what you sow and in multiples thereof [Galatians 6:7]. Honest hard work results in Godly rewards (until the civil government interferes).
When the Israelites left captivity in Egypt, God (through Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law) revealed to Moses the perfect order of civil government [Exodus 18:13-27]. You see, there were only a few million men, women and children wandering around in the desert. I am sure there were a few “bad apples” in the bunch. So, Moses had to have some way of dealing with the law-breakers. That is why he needed a civil government. That is why civil government was created – to punish the law-breakers [Romans 13:3-4]. The purpose of civil government has not changed (at least not in our Creator’s eyes because God does not change – he doesn’t have to – he is perfect – any change would make Him less than perfect).
God, through Jethro, suggested that Moses set up a hierarchy of judges over the people. Judges “over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens” [Exodus 18:21; Deuteronomy 1:15] The people were to choose these judges [Deuteronomy 1:13]. They were to choose “men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain” [Exodus 18:21]. As long as the people applied these criteria and chose capable and righteous men, justice was swift and fair, and freedom and liberty abounded. But when the people chose dishonest men – no justice, no liberty, loss of freedom.
The Israelites lived as a nation for over 400 years under this form of civil government. During all of this time, no taxes were levied. Revenue for the operation of the civil government was generated by fines paid by the law-breakers. There was no need for prisons as incarceration was never punishment for a crime. The only jails that existed were used to separate potentially violent criminals from the general population until they could be properly tried for their crime. A Godly government has no need to collect taxes or for prisons.
Then, after over 400 years, the Israelites rejected God and His government when they wanted a “king … like all the other nations … to lead [them] and go out before [them] and fight [their] battles” [I Samuel 8:20]. And the Israelites forgot the eighth commandment. And oppressive taxation soon followed. The forced confiscation of property became so oppressive that after about 120 years, the nation of Israel split into two nations [I Kings 12:1-24; II Chronicles 10:1-11:4] and ultimately were taken into captivity because of their rejection of God and His law.
Socialism rejects this principle of private property and as such, changes the eighth commandment to “You shall not steal except by the majority vote of the people.” It is a man-made system of government resulting in oppressive taxation which takes away our freedom and liberty. It eliminates employment opportunities, causes price inflation, and many other economic woes.
Some of you, as support for taxation by the civil government, might point out that Jesus said to “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s” [Matthew 22:21; Mark 12:17; Luke 20:25]. It is true. Jesus did say that. And Paul restated Jesus’ principle in Romans 13:6-7.
However, you must remember that during the time both Jesus and Paul walked on the earth, the Israelites, because of their rejection of God and His law, were subjected to the man-made pagan law structure of Rome (Caesar worship). Jesus and Paul were reinforcing the fact that the Israelites were being punished for their disobedience and therefore had to live according to the man-made law structure of a perverse government. The Israelites were forced to pay homage to their captors as long as they rejected God and His law. So, part of Israel’s punishment for rejecting God and His law was forced confiscation of their property by a foreign pagan nation. In fact, every time Israel turned their back on God, the nation was subjected through captivity to a socialistic pagan foreign nation’s laws. In God’s Word, socialism is always associated with paganism.
Private property is a power which our Creator entrusts to man as a stewardship, because it is our Creator’s intention that man should have and exercise power unto the end that the earth be subdued and man’s dominion over the earth under our Creator be established. God gives to the civil government its due power in its domain – the punishment of law breakers. Private property is a power given to man to be used under God and to His glory.
If a nation applies God’s principles as revealed in His Word, then there will be no need for taxes. And, the principle of private property as established by the eighth commandment will result in more freedom and liberty than we have ever experienced in our lifetimes. This is what our founding fathers had in mind back in 1776. What gold is to money, God’s law is to liberty. Without God’s law, men, unions, corporations, and civil governments feel free to be a law unto themselves – to play god. Failure to teach the law of God paves the way to tyranny.
As our founding father James Madison said of God’s law:
We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God. [Cited by F. Nymeyer, in Progressive Calvinism (South Holland, Ill.: Libertarian Press, 1958), IV, 31.]
What about you? Are you a capitalist, or a socialist? Which do you prefer?
Respectfully,
Mark
Monday, November 15, 2010
The Churches' Dual Standard on Working Wives and the Welfare State
Dear Friends:
Pastors for almost 2,000 years have preached against sin in general. Preaching against a specific sin can get a pastor in a lot of trouble if any of the church’s leaders commit this sin regularly. Pastors who preach against specific sins preach against those that are not common in their congregations.
This is why pastors do not preach against practices that are widely accepted in the culture or region in which the church is located. Pastors know that many of those inside their churches are also participating. Only when self-consciously not practicing something is part of the denomination’s tradition that defines it do pastors preach against it. A classic American example is the Amish practice of bringing under discipline any man who uses a zipper, which is considered “modern.” They also preach against participating in the Social Security System. This deserves some attention.
Before World War II, wives in the West did not work for a living outside the home. Farmers’ wives worked long and hard, but they worked at home. This was best for the children, but as taxes rose, wives were forced to work outside the home to pay them.
You will not ever hear a sermon on the evil of high taxation because it forces wives to work outside the home.
There are still denominations that preach against wives working outside the home. But these denominations do not preach against Social Security and Medicare. Yet these two programs make most retired people wards of the state.
If a husband does not earn enough money to pay all of the modern state’s taxes and also build a retirement portfolio that will sustain him and his wife in their old age, they will be left to the tender mercies of the state. If it requires a wife in the labor force to build up such a portfolio, why is this wrong?
Letting the wife contribute to the family’s income is a case for having a home-based business.
To preach that wives should not work outside the home places a burden on the preacher to preach the requirement of a home-based business. If he refuses to preach this, then he owes it to his flock to preach a household savings rate of at least 20% after the tithe. Anyone who does not save at this rate will be impoverished in old age.
If he refuses to preach the moral requirement of a home-based business or above-average thrift, then he must preach against retirement. He must teach husbands to run the numbers so that the men can see that they will not be able to retire. They will not have enough capital to leave to their widows to carry the widows through to death.
If a pastor refuses to preach any of this, then he must preach on the moral necessity of members’ becoming dependent on their adult children when they retire. Otherwise, they will be dependent on the state. But you won’t hear a sermon on this. It would not be appreciated by members who say, “I do not want to become dependent on the charity of my children.” They do not also say, “I do not want to become dependent on the state,” meaning the taxes extracted from their children and other families’ children.
Pastors never preach such sermons. If their denominational tradition favors stay-at-home mothers, they preach this occasionally, but they refuse to preach the ethical corollaries to this doctrine: home-based businesses, highly disciplined thrift, dependence on adult children, or the moral obligation not to retire.
Any church that teaches that wives should not work outside the home after they become mothers is preaching half a gospel if they do not also preach the moral necessity of not becoming wards of the state in retirement. If the church refuses, it is preaching this:
God is honored by families that keep mothers at home. However, God is in no way dishonored by families that become economically dependent on the state. Compulsory state welfare is a good thing, biblically speaking, because it relieves the church of its Bible-mandated obligation to support indigent members (I Timothy 5). The state picks up the tab, so we don’t have to. Praise God! Hallelujah! This is especially true of retired church members.
So, wives, don’t work outside the home. So, husbands, don’t worry about going on Social Security. God is honored when His people become wards of the state.
Pastors never spell it out in this way. That might get them fired.
Pastors are allowed to opt out of Social Security during the first 18 months of their ordination, if they do so for moral objections. Only the Amish and other Mennonite protesters are allowed this liberty. But no denomination recommends to its new ministers that they do this. That would mean taking a moral stand against Social Security. So, very few ministers opt out.
In 1957, Rev. Francis Mahaffy’s article against entering into the Social Security system was published in The Freeman. It was titled, “A Clergyman’s Security.” It is online at www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/a-clergymans-security. It is still as valid today as it was then.
The modern church is blind to the moral evil of state-imposed welfare programs. Members are not taught about the great threat of dependency on the state.
When the day of reckoning comes, and the modern welfare state goes bankrupt, churches will discover how expensive it is to follow the requirements of I Timothy 5. They will have far more indigents on their roles. There will be a stream of oldsters, hats in hand, who say: “No one in our pulpits ever taught us to plan for our future in order to avoid dependency on the state.” They will be telling the truth. No one ever did.
Nobody teaches them that they have a moral obligation to tithe. Nobody teaches them that they have a moral obligation to save and avoid consumer debt. No one teaches them that the voters are sinning when they vote to establish programs of tax-funded charity. “That’s politics,” pastors say. “We don’t get mixed up in politics.” Oh, yeah? They get mixed up in politics the day they send an indigent member to the state for tax-funded care.
So, who will teach the younger members that they must pay for the oldsters whose families will not help them financially, after the state goes belly-up?
“I see that hand!”
No, actually, I don’t.
Respectfully,
Mark
Pastors for almost 2,000 years have preached against sin in general. Preaching against a specific sin can get a pastor in a lot of trouble if any of the church’s leaders commit this sin regularly. Pastors who preach against specific sins preach against those that are not common in their congregations.
This is why pastors do not preach against practices that are widely accepted in the culture or region in which the church is located. Pastors know that many of those inside their churches are also participating. Only when self-consciously not practicing something is part of the denomination’s tradition that defines it do pastors preach against it. A classic American example is the Amish practice of bringing under discipline any man who uses a zipper, which is considered “modern.” They also preach against participating in the Social Security System. This deserves some attention.
Before World War II, wives in the West did not work for a living outside the home. Farmers’ wives worked long and hard, but they worked at home. This was best for the children, but as taxes rose, wives were forced to work outside the home to pay them.
You will not ever hear a sermon on the evil of high taxation because it forces wives to work outside the home.
There are still denominations that preach against wives working outside the home. But these denominations do not preach against Social Security and Medicare. Yet these two programs make most retired people wards of the state.
If a husband does not earn enough money to pay all of the modern state’s taxes and also build a retirement portfolio that will sustain him and his wife in their old age, they will be left to the tender mercies of the state. If it requires a wife in the labor force to build up such a portfolio, why is this wrong?
Letting the wife contribute to the family’s income is a case for having a home-based business.
To preach that wives should not work outside the home places a burden on the preacher to preach the requirement of a home-based business. If he refuses to preach this, then he owes it to his flock to preach a household savings rate of at least 20% after the tithe. Anyone who does not save at this rate will be impoverished in old age.
If he refuses to preach the moral requirement of a home-based business or above-average thrift, then he must preach against retirement. He must teach husbands to run the numbers so that the men can see that they will not be able to retire. They will not have enough capital to leave to their widows to carry the widows through to death.
If a pastor refuses to preach any of this, then he must preach on the moral necessity of members’ becoming dependent on their adult children when they retire. Otherwise, they will be dependent on the state. But you won’t hear a sermon on this. It would not be appreciated by members who say, “I do not want to become dependent on the charity of my children.” They do not also say, “I do not want to become dependent on the state,” meaning the taxes extracted from their children and other families’ children.
Pastors never preach such sermons. If their denominational tradition favors stay-at-home mothers, they preach this occasionally, but they refuse to preach the ethical corollaries to this doctrine: home-based businesses, highly disciplined thrift, dependence on adult children, or the moral obligation not to retire.
Any church that teaches that wives should not work outside the home after they become mothers is preaching half a gospel if they do not also preach the moral necessity of not becoming wards of the state in retirement. If the church refuses, it is preaching this:
God is honored by families that keep mothers at home. However, God is in no way dishonored by families that become economically dependent on the state. Compulsory state welfare is a good thing, biblically speaking, because it relieves the church of its Bible-mandated obligation to support indigent members (I Timothy 5). The state picks up the tab, so we don’t have to. Praise God! Hallelujah! This is especially true of retired church members.
So, wives, don’t work outside the home. So, husbands, don’t worry about going on Social Security. God is honored when His people become wards of the state.
Pastors never spell it out in this way. That might get them fired.
Pastors are allowed to opt out of Social Security during the first 18 months of their ordination, if they do so for moral objections. Only the Amish and other Mennonite protesters are allowed this liberty. But no denomination recommends to its new ministers that they do this. That would mean taking a moral stand against Social Security. So, very few ministers opt out.
In 1957, Rev. Francis Mahaffy’s article against entering into the Social Security system was published in The Freeman. It was titled, “A Clergyman’s Security.” It is online at www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/a-clergymans-security. It is still as valid today as it was then.
The modern church is blind to the moral evil of state-imposed welfare programs. Members are not taught about the great threat of dependency on the state.
When the day of reckoning comes, and the modern welfare state goes bankrupt, churches will discover how expensive it is to follow the requirements of I Timothy 5. They will have far more indigents on their roles. There will be a stream of oldsters, hats in hand, who say: “No one in our pulpits ever taught us to plan for our future in order to avoid dependency on the state.” They will be telling the truth. No one ever did.
Nobody teaches them that they have a moral obligation to tithe. Nobody teaches them that they have a moral obligation to save and avoid consumer debt. No one teaches them that the voters are sinning when they vote to establish programs of tax-funded charity. “That’s politics,” pastors say. “We don’t get mixed up in politics.” Oh, yeah? They get mixed up in politics the day they send an indigent member to the state for tax-funded care.
So, who will teach the younger members that they must pay for the oldsters whose families will not help them financially, after the state goes belly-up?
“I see that hand!”
No, actually, I don’t.
Respectfully,
Mark
Monday, November 8, 2010
John Boehner's "GobGop" Plan to Sell Out the Tea Party in 2013. It Will Begin in January 2011.
Dear Friends:
This plan will work. The Tea Party folks will not know what hit them. But it will take two years. This is a done deal.
First, you must understand that John Boehner is a GobGop: a Good Old Boy of the Grand Old Party. The GobGops’ goal is to keep the present system funded by the Bigs: Big Business, Big Pharma, Big Oil, and Big Banking. If you do not understand this, then you are as naive as a Democrat who thinks Obama speaks for The Common Man.
Boehner shilled for Hank Paulson and Goldman Sachs by begging the Republicans to vote for the $750+ billion Big Bank Bailout in 2008. “We just have to do it!” No, they didn’t. Ron Paul told it straight. He is no GobGop.
Boehner is going to do it again. He has already told us what he intends to do.
The obvious target is Obamacare. The Tea Party voters hate it. They regard it as an affront.
You’ve probably seen this. It’s all over the Web. It’s supposedly from Maxine, the cartoon character who speaks for geezerdom.
Let me get this straight …. We’re going to be “gifted” with a health care plan
we are forced to purchase and fined if we don’t,
Which purportedly covers at least ten million more people, without adding a single new doctor,
but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents,
written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn’t understand it,
passed by a Congress that didn’t read it
but exempted themselves from it,
and signed by a President who smokes,
with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes,
for which we’ll be taxed for four years before any benefits take effect,
by a government which has already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare,
all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese,
and financed by a country that’s broke!!!!!
‘What the heck could possibly go wrong?’
This is all true. Tea Party people know it’s all true. They threw the rascals out … but left enough of them behind to sell us out.
Boehner told a Fox News interviewer what he plans to do: (1) repeal Obamacare; (2) pass another heath care law. Here is a direct quote:
“This health care bill will ruin the best health care system in the world, and it will bankrupt our country. We are going to repeal ObamaCare and replace it with common sense reforms that will bring down the cost of health insurance.”
Big Pharma is not threatened by this. Big Pharma will clean up either way.
If Boehner is politically savvy, he will have the Republicans introduce a repeal bill as soon as he takes over as Speaker of the House. The following will then take place.
1. A straight party vote will pass it.
2. In the Senate, the Democrats will not pass it.
3. Boehner will then begin a two-year campaign:
“The Republican Party is committed to a repeal of Obamacare. In 2012, you will have another opportunity to vote the Democrats out of power in the Senate, and give the Republicans a President who will sign this bill.”
He will play to the Tea Party. He will gain their trust. He will throw down the gauntlet on health insurance from day one. He will hammer relentlessly on this for two years.
The goal here is to get the Tea Party voters into his camp. He is a GobGop. But it’s obvious that he will score lots of points by doing this.
In 2012, the Republicans will take over the Senate and elect a President. It will repeal Obamacare. Then the Republican GobGops will introduce another huge bill that they promise will cut medical costs.
They will not cut spending. They will not raise taxes. They will preside over a gigantic deficit.
The pork will continue to flow.
The Tea Party people will sense betrayal. Then we will see how committed they are to getting the spending under control … in 2015. But, it will be too late. We will have moved beyond the point of no return.
The sell-out is coming. It will be business as usual. The GobGops now control the House. They can posture all they want, knowing the Senate will block their token spending cuts. The GobGops will scream: “If we only controlled the Senate! If we only controlled the White House! Then we could get spending under control!” You know: the way they did under Bush. Yeah, right!
It will make great political theater. Punch and Judy will perform a real donnybrook. A good time will be had by all.
The Bigs will get bigger. They always do.
Remember, in 1980, we were the largest creditor nation in the world. Jimmy Carter (Democrat) was president. In 1981, Ronald Reagan moved into the White House. And the debt spiral began. By 2010, we had become the largest debtor nation in the world. Thirty years to go from the largest creditor to the largest debtor. And during those 30 years, we had 20 years of Republican presidents and 10 years of Democrat presidents: Ronald Reagan (Republican 1981-1989); George H.W. Bush (Republican 1989-1993); William J. Clinton (Democrat 1993-2001); George W. Bush (Republican 2001-2009); and Barack Hussein Obama (Democrat 2009-present).
Also, during those 30 years, Republicans controlled the House for 10 years (1995 to 2005) while the Democrats controlled it the remaining 20 years.
Finally, during that same 30 years, Republicans controlled the Senate only 10 ½ years (1981-1987, 1995-mid 2001, 2003-2007), while the Democrats controlled it the remaining 19 ½ years.
As you can see, neither party has been good for our nation. I say throw them all out. You just can’t trust a politician!!!
Respectfully,
Mark
Monday, November 1, 2010
The Evil of the Pity of Man
Dear Friends:
For handfuls of barley and fragments of bread, you have profaned Me to My people to put to death some who should not die and to keep others alive who should not live, by your lying to My people who listen to lies. [Ezekiel 13:19]
Pity is the secular humanists’ chief moral virtue. If you are a secular humanist, it is mandatory that you show pity to someone. And do it publicly so that everyone knows how much pity you feel toward those who are “unfortunate.” There are so many people out there that are victims – or can be made to look like victims – to evil circumstances or institutions or simply evil reality. What better opportunity to show the world how moral and compassionate and tenderhearted you are. Over the last century the secular humanists, not having any discernible moral standard at all, still had quite a few moral causes, all of them based on this one single moral virtue – pity. Everyone and everything can be turned into an unfortunate victim that deserves the secular humanists’ pity. Communist guerillas, Muslim terrorists, single mothers, married mothers, children without parents, children with parents, poor people without houses and cars, poor people who own houses and cars, people without health insurance, whether they want it or not, people with health insurance, legal immigrants, illegal immigrants, minorities – and especially minority leaders who live off the backs of their minorities like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton – animal populations that are dwindling, animal populations that are thriving, icebergs with polar bears on top, icebergs without polar bears on top, warmer climate, cooler climate, changing climate … everything.
On September 23, 2010, the paragons of the Pity of Man had a priceless occasion to remind the world of their moral superiority: The Commonwealth of Virginia executed Teresa Lewis. Eight years earlier, on the night of October 30, 2002, Teresa Lewis organized the murder of her husband and her stepson. The motive was her stepson’s life insurance from his military service. Lewis used money and sexual favors – offering her 16-year old daughter – to recruit two men more than 10 years older than her daughter, to shoot the victims. After the crime, she waited for more than an hour before she called the police, while her husband, still alive, bled to death. In the meantime, she cold-bloodedly searched the victims’ clothes and belongings for money. When police officers arrived, her husband was still able to tell them that his wife knew everything about the murder.
At the trial, she pleaded guilty, and she allowed the judge to decide her sentence. Her attorneys believed she had a better chance to get a life term from a judge who never sentenced anyone to death. However, the judge found that the crime was so horrible that it deserved death, and he declared that Teresa Lewis, the mastermind behind the crime, must be executed. So, on September 23, 2010, Lewis was executed.
Just sentence, given the crime, every sensible person would say. Just sentence, indeed. But for secular humanists, that’s exactly where the problem lies.
Nothing can enrage secular humanists so much as a just sentence of a real criminal. And nothing gives them a better opportunity to exhibit to the world their superior pity. Groups from within the US and abroad started campaigning against the sentence. Even the European Union decided to intervene and petition the governor of Virginia. Different reasons were cited.
First, of course, she was a woman. In the eyes of the secular humanists, that surely made her a victim, no matter how heinous the crime she committed. “The first woman to be executed in Virginia in 100 years,” declared one secular humanist website, as if the frequency of death sentences has anything to do with the specific case. Of course, the same source is quick to inform us, that “her sexuality made her a victim in uniquely female ways.” Even though women receive only two per cent of the death sentences in this country, the website says,
[T]he whole capital punishment machine is hugely gender-biased, and always has been. Capital punishment has to be one of the most sexist systems left in America.
And of course, since the secular humanists need to go further in creating a victim out of a cold-blooded murderer, the following statement is mandatory:
While women are sentenced to death far less frequently than men, often the offenses for which they are sentenced are also rooted in antiquated gender stereotypes. When women are sentenced to die, say experts, it tends to be for the most sexist reasons.
Then there was the question of her mental abilities. Her IQ, as some psychologist found out, was 72, right on the border of “mental retardation.” Additional proof from “witnesses” was that she “never lived alone, couldn’t buy more than one day’s worth of groceries at a time, and could never balance a checkbook. For her, this meant marrying at a very young age (16) and a lifetime of being dependent on men.” Compelling evidence for mental retardation.
Think about it. She devises a plot to offer sex and money to two men, so that they – and not her – shoot her stepson, and her husband, in order to get the money from her son’s life insurance. It seems she has enough IQ to think things through. She may not be able to “buy more than one day’s worth of groceries at a time,” but she surely could think far enough ahead to know that she was getting a quarter million dollars from her stepson’s insurance. Besides, how could we know Lewis wasn’t simulating all the tests? An intelligent person can simulate low IQ. It’s the unintelligent person that can’t simulate high IQ. What if Lewis was “advised” to play dumb as a way to save herself from a just sentence? And what signal does that send to our society, to our young people? “The dumber you are the better chance of getting away with a crime you commit.”
Of course, secular humanists never used the same argument concerning Terri Schiavo’s case. If anyone really had some brain damage, it was Terri. She hadn’t committed any crime – which, I suppose, is itself a crime in the secular humanists’ eyes – and her IQ was much lower than 70. In fact, she wasn’t conscious. You would think it would be a good reason for the secular humanists to campaign against her execution. But they didn’t. In fact, they campaigned for Terri to be executed.
Then there was the argument for Teresa Lewis’ “exemplary behavior” as a prisoner. She even “ministered to Christian women” in prison, believe it or not. (Yup, counseling services are a piece of cake for a mentally retarded person, you know.) She is very sorry, and she wouldn’t do it again, if she could. So exemplary she has become that her attorney had the face to declare, “A good and decent person is about to lose her life because of a system that is broken.” Now, the scale of values that would declare Lewis “a good and decent person” is beyond human abilities to comprehend. But the main point is in the idea that she is a victim of a “broken system.”
We cannot miss the Iranian president Ahmadinejad who used Lewis’ case to justify the death sentence of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani in Iran. His propaganda effort was joined by our own secular humanists who were quick to point out how our Justice system is not different from Shariah. Left out of the picture was the fact that Sakineh was tortured in jail by male guards to admit adultery, was at first acquitted, then illegally tried again for the same crime, a new accusation of manslaughter (without witnesses or names) was added to the charge, and the Iranian court refused to let her have translation of the court documents in her spoken language, Azeri. The so-called “adultery” was alleged to have happened after the death of her husband, and the men with whom she allegedly committed it were never summoned in court, nor were their names mentioned in the court documents. She wasn’t allowed to summon any witnesses, and she was completely cut off from any communication with the outside world, in an attempt to silence the campaigns in her support. Nothing of this happened to Teresa Lewis, but neither Ahmadinejad nor American secular humanists are people who would let facts get in the way of their propaganda.
As stated above, everything can be made a victim worthy of the secular humanists’ pity. But reality is, the secular humanists have their preferences; they identify much more easily with certain classes of people, and ignore other classes. At the top of their scale of worthy victims are those that are real, real criminals. The more people a criminal robs, kills, or oppresses the better candidate he is for the Pity of Man. Che Guevara, for example. The heartbreaking story of his capture and execution was made known to the whole world. No story is recorded of the thousands he killed while being a high official in the Cuban Communist government, or in his “revolutionary” activities in Congo and Bolivia. Muslim terrorists are other worthy candidates for pity. Or abortionists. Secular humanists don’t just make them victims deserving pity, they even make them heroes deserving admiration – like Mao, or Ho Chi Minh, or Hugo Chavez, or Mugabe.
When illustrious ideological mass murderers are not available for pity and heroization, smaller criminals would suffice. Teresa Lewis, for example. Or illegal aliens.
On the bottom of the scale of the Pity of Man are those that haven’t committed any crime and therefore deserve no pity. Unborn babies, to start with. The victims of Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Che, or Stalin. The victims of Teresa Lewis. The families of those who died in the 9/11 attacks. Christians persecuted in Muslim countries. Women oppressed and mutilated by Muslim societies. Closer to home, small businesses pressed by the Federal government with increasing taxes. Law-abiding citizens whose lifetime savings are drained by taxes and inflation.
In other words, the secular humanists’ pity has moral priorities. The worse criminal a person is, the more deserving of pity. The more a person is innocent, the less they deserve pity. Secular humanists’ pity has moral preferences; it is moral identification with criminals. More than that, a justly sentenced criminal is even easier to identify with. The problem for secular humanists comes when there are real victims of real crimes. Then, try as much as he can, the secular humanist remains unmoved. He can’t identify with an innocent person.
It is a complete reversal of God’s mercy. God identifies with the real victims; he lets the victims decide if a criminal deserves mercy or justice. Mercy can only come from God, or from His judicial representative in the crime – the victims. A righteous person would let the victims show mercy if they want. A judge or a civil ruler is not to show mercy to proven criminals; such “mercy” would be cruelty to the victims of crimes, it would be a perversion of justice. Most importantly, it is a rebellion against God Whose Law only can preserve a civilization, as we know from our Founding Fathers.
The world of the secular humanists’ pity is a world that creates and encourages a culture of impunity for criminals. It is a world of cultural suicide, a world that cannot find the moral fiber to resist its own destruction. It is a world that is going to extinction. By morally siding with criminals like Teresa Lewis, secular humanists dig their own grave. In their ideal secular humanist world, criminals would face no opposition to their crimes, and therefore will be left free to destroy the society.
The end of this secular humanists’ world is near. Fewer and fewer people listen to their lies, and more and more people demand justice be restored in the land and throughout the world. The Governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, refused to commute the death sentence of Lewis, giving an example of a responsible civil magistrate concerned with justice and not with self-destructive pity. God is here to restore His justice over our land. As He Himself says concerning those that “put to death some who should not die and to keep others alive who should not live, by your lying to My people who listen to lies.” [Ezekiel 13:19]
I will also tear off your veils and deliver My people from your hands, and they will no longer be in your hands to be hunted; and you will know that I am the LORD. [Ezekiel 13:21]
It will be our job as His church to declare His justice throughout the land.
Respectfully, Mark
For handfuls of barley and fragments of bread, you have profaned Me to My people to put to death some who should not die and to keep others alive who should not live, by your lying to My people who listen to lies. [Ezekiel 13:19]
Pity is the secular humanists’ chief moral virtue. If you are a secular humanist, it is mandatory that you show pity to someone. And do it publicly so that everyone knows how much pity you feel toward those who are “unfortunate.” There are so many people out there that are victims – or can be made to look like victims – to evil circumstances or institutions or simply evil reality. What better opportunity to show the world how moral and compassionate and tenderhearted you are. Over the last century the secular humanists, not having any discernible moral standard at all, still had quite a few moral causes, all of them based on this one single moral virtue – pity. Everyone and everything can be turned into an unfortunate victim that deserves the secular humanists’ pity. Communist guerillas, Muslim terrorists, single mothers, married mothers, children without parents, children with parents, poor people without houses and cars, poor people who own houses and cars, people without health insurance, whether they want it or not, people with health insurance, legal immigrants, illegal immigrants, minorities – and especially minority leaders who live off the backs of their minorities like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton – animal populations that are dwindling, animal populations that are thriving, icebergs with polar bears on top, icebergs without polar bears on top, warmer climate, cooler climate, changing climate … everything.
On September 23, 2010, the paragons of the Pity of Man had a priceless occasion to remind the world of their moral superiority: The Commonwealth of Virginia executed Teresa Lewis. Eight years earlier, on the night of October 30, 2002, Teresa Lewis organized the murder of her husband and her stepson. The motive was her stepson’s life insurance from his military service. Lewis used money and sexual favors – offering her 16-year old daughter – to recruit two men more than 10 years older than her daughter, to shoot the victims. After the crime, she waited for more than an hour before she called the police, while her husband, still alive, bled to death. In the meantime, she cold-bloodedly searched the victims’ clothes and belongings for money. When police officers arrived, her husband was still able to tell them that his wife knew everything about the murder.
At the trial, she pleaded guilty, and she allowed the judge to decide her sentence. Her attorneys believed she had a better chance to get a life term from a judge who never sentenced anyone to death. However, the judge found that the crime was so horrible that it deserved death, and he declared that Teresa Lewis, the mastermind behind the crime, must be executed. So, on September 23, 2010, Lewis was executed.
Just sentence, given the crime, every sensible person would say. Just sentence, indeed. But for secular humanists, that’s exactly where the problem lies.
Nothing can enrage secular humanists so much as a just sentence of a real criminal. And nothing gives them a better opportunity to exhibit to the world their superior pity. Groups from within the US and abroad started campaigning against the sentence. Even the European Union decided to intervene and petition the governor of Virginia. Different reasons were cited.
First, of course, she was a woman. In the eyes of the secular humanists, that surely made her a victim, no matter how heinous the crime she committed. “The first woman to be executed in Virginia in 100 years,” declared one secular humanist website, as if the frequency of death sentences has anything to do with the specific case. Of course, the same source is quick to inform us, that “her sexuality made her a victim in uniquely female ways.” Even though women receive only two per cent of the death sentences in this country, the website says,
[T]he whole capital punishment machine is hugely gender-biased, and always has been. Capital punishment has to be one of the most sexist systems left in America.
And of course, since the secular humanists need to go further in creating a victim out of a cold-blooded murderer, the following statement is mandatory:
While women are sentenced to death far less frequently than men, often the offenses for which they are sentenced are also rooted in antiquated gender stereotypes. When women are sentenced to die, say experts, it tends to be for the most sexist reasons.
Then there was the question of her mental abilities. Her IQ, as some psychologist found out, was 72, right on the border of “mental retardation.” Additional proof from “witnesses” was that she “never lived alone, couldn’t buy more than one day’s worth of groceries at a time, and could never balance a checkbook. For her, this meant marrying at a very young age (16) and a lifetime of being dependent on men.” Compelling evidence for mental retardation.
Think about it. She devises a plot to offer sex and money to two men, so that they – and not her – shoot her stepson, and her husband, in order to get the money from her son’s life insurance. It seems she has enough IQ to think things through. She may not be able to “buy more than one day’s worth of groceries at a time,” but she surely could think far enough ahead to know that she was getting a quarter million dollars from her stepson’s insurance. Besides, how could we know Lewis wasn’t simulating all the tests? An intelligent person can simulate low IQ. It’s the unintelligent person that can’t simulate high IQ. What if Lewis was “advised” to play dumb as a way to save herself from a just sentence? And what signal does that send to our society, to our young people? “The dumber you are the better chance of getting away with a crime you commit.”
Of course, secular humanists never used the same argument concerning Terri Schiavo’s case. If anyone really had some brain damage, it was Terri. She hadn’t committed any crime – which, I suppose, is itself a crime in the secular humanists’ eyes – and her IQ was much lower than 70. In fact, she wasn’t conscious. You would think it would be a good reason for the secular humanists to campaign against her execution. But they didn’t. In fact, they campaigned for Terri to be executed.
Then there was the argument for Teresa Lewis’ “exemplary behavior” as a prisoner. She even “ministered to Christian women” in prison, believe it or not. (Yup, counseling services are a piece of cake for a mentally retarded person, you know.) She is very sorry, and she wouldn’t do it again, if she could. So exemplary she has become that her attorney had the face to declare, “A good and decent person is about to lose her life because of a system that is broken.” Now, the scale of values that would declare Lewis “a good and decent person” is beyond human abilities to comprehend. But the main point is in the idea that she is a victim of a “broken system.”
We cannot miss the Iranian president Ahmadinejad who used Lewis’ case to justify the death sentence of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani in Iran. His propaganda effort was joined by our own secular humanists who were quick to point out how our Justice system is not different from Shariah. Left out of the picture was the fact that Sakineh was tortured in jail by male guards to admit adultery, was at first acquitted, then illegally tried again for the same crime, a new accusation of manslaughter (without witnesses or names) was added to the charge, and the Iranian court refused to let her have translation of the court documents in her spoken language, Azeri. The so-called “adultery” was alleged to have happened after the death of her husband, and the men with whom she allegedly committed it were never summoned in court, nor were their names mentioned in the court documents. She wasn’t allowed to summon any witnesses, and she was completely cut off from any communication with the outside world, in an attempt to silence the campaigns in her support. Nothing of this happened to Teresa Lewis, but neither Ahmadinejad nor American secular humanists are people who would let facts get in the way of their propaganda.
As stated above, everything can be made a victim worthy of the secular humanists’ pity. But reality is, the secular humanists have their preferences; they identify much more easily with certain classes of people, and ignore other classes. At the top of their scale of worthy victims are those that are real, real criminals. The more people a criminal robs, kills, or oppresses the better candidate he is for the Pity of Man. Che Guevara, for example. The heartbreaking story of his capture and execution was made known to the whole world. No story is recorded of the thousands he killed while being a high official in the Cuban Communist government, or in his “revolutionary” activities in Congo and Bolivia. Muslim terrorists are other worthy candidates for pity. Or abortionists. Secular humanists don’t just make them victims deserving pity, they even make them heroes deserving admiration – like Mao, or Ho Chi Minh, or Hugo Chavez, or Mugabe.
When illustrious ideological mass murderers are not available for pity and heroization, smaller criminals would suffice. Teresa Lewis, for example. Or illegal aliens.
On the bottom of the scale of the Pity of Man are those that haven’t committed any crime and therefore deserve no pity. Unborn babies, to start with. The victims of Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Che, or Stalin. The victims of Teresa Lewis. The families of those who died in the 9/11 attacks. Christians persecuted in Muslim countries. Women oppressed and mutilated by Muslim societies. Closer to home, small businesses pressed by the Federal government with increasing taxes. Law-abiding citizens whose lifetime savings are drained by taxes and inflation.
In other words, the secular humanists’ pity has moral priorities. The worse criminal a person is, the more deserving of pity. The more a person is innocent, the less they deserve pity. Secular humanists’ pity has moral preferences; it is moral identification with criminals. More than that, a justly sentenced criminal is even easier to identify with. The problem for secular humanists comes when there are real victims of real crimes. Then, try as much as he can, the secular humanist remains unmoved. He can’t identify with an innocent person.
It is a complete reversal of God’s mercy. God identifies with the real victims; he lets the victims decide if a criminal deserves mercy or justice. Mercy can only come from God, or from His judicial representative in the crime – the victims. A righteous person would let the victims show mercy if they want. A judge or a civil ruler is not to show mercy to proven criminals; such “mercy” would be cruelty to the victims of crimes, it would be a perversion of justice. Most importantly, it is a rebellion against God Whose Law only can preserve a civilization, as we know from our Founding Fathers.
The world of the secular humanists’ pity is a world that creates and encourages a culture of impunity for criminals. It is a world of cultural suicide, a world that cannot find the moral fiber to resist its own destruction. It is a world that is going to extinction. By morally siding with criminals like Teresa Lewis, secular humanists dig their own grave. In their ideal secular humanist world, criminals would face no opposition to their crimes, and therefore will be left free to destroy the society.
The end of this secular humanists’ world is near. Fewer and fewer people listen to their lies, and more and more people demand justice be restored in the land and throughout the world. The Governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, refused to commute the death sentence of Lewis, giving an example of a responsible civil magistrate concerned with justice and not with self-destructive pity. God is here to restore His justice over our land. As He Himself says concerning those that “put to death some who should not die and to keep others alive who should not live, by your lying to My people who listen to lies.” [Ezekiel 13:19]
I will also tear off your veils and deliver My people from your hands, and they will no longer be in your hands to be hunted; and you will know that I am the LORD. [Ezekiel 13:21]
It will be our job as His church to declare His justice throughout the land.
Respectfully, Mark
Monday, October 18, 2010
The Necessary Limits of Government
Dear Friends:
The first place to go to understand the proper relationship between church and state is to study the nature of jurisdictions. Jurisdictional separation deals with the legitimate boundaries of authority. A person who owns a piece of property has jurisdiction over his own property, but he does not have jurisdiction over someone else’s property. A property owner can only “speak the law” (juris = law + diction = speak) within the confines of the boundaries of his own property. In this way, a property owner’s jurisdiction is limited. Property lines are legal entities that limit authority.
What’s true of property is also true of civil governments. State governments have limited jurisdictional authority. A state government and its courts can only “speak the law,” have jurisdiction over, those who reside within the boundaries of the state or those passing through. That’s why each state has its own constitution, courts, and elected officials. An elected official in one state has no jurisdictional authority in or over another state.
In the same way, the Federal government’s jurisdiction is designed to be limited by the Constitution, although such limitations are not often acknowledged by the courts, the President, or Congress. These delegated agencies are always attempting to test the limits of their specified boundary markers. Nevertheless, the Constitution is a jurisdictionally limited document in that its enumerated powers are the only ones it possesses. Powers not specified in the Constitution are retained by the individual states as set forth in their constitutions. These Federal jurisdictional limitations are set forth in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution:
Ninth: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
Tenth: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Jurisdictional limitation at all levels of civil government is one of the governmental principles that makes America a stable and free nation.
When the Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787, it did not contain a bill of rights. The constitution as drafted was sent to the states for ratification. The Federalists supported it while the Anti-Federalists opposed it. The Anti-Federalists wanted a bill of rights. The Federalists argued that a bill of rights was unnecessary since the Constitution created a national government of enumerated powers. With this form of government, unless a power was actually spelled out in the document, it did not exist. Since the Constitution did not give the national government legislative power over religion, Federalists considered a bill of rights unnecessary and even dangerous. To mention a subject was thought to give the Federal government control over it. John Jay stated it this way:
Silence and blank paper neither grant nor take away anything. Complaints are also made that the proposed Constitution is not accompanied by a bill of rights; and yet they who make the complaints know, and are content, that no bill of rights accompanied the constitution of this State [New York].1
Jay failed to note George Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776), the English Bill of Rights (1689), and earlier English political documents such as Magna Charta (1215). The specification of rights was part of English history that served as an example to those who had a public mistrust of government.
The Anti-Federalists disagreed with the claim that silence made rights undeniable. They had an innate and historical suspicion of centralized civil government. Without further restraints on basic individual rights, they feared that the Federal government could exercise powers not granted to it because they were not prohibited by the Constitution. They argued that a formal declaration of rights was essential to secure certain liberties. Virginia, New York, Rhode Island, and North Carolina requested amendments concerning freedom of religion, press, assembly, and speech. The Virginia Convention stated the following regarding religion in Article 16 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights:
That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore, all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.2
Borrowing language from the Declaration of Independence, the Federalists made it clear that this and other rights are not granted by civil governments but are “natural and unalienable.”
The Anti-Federalists won the argument. Their mistrust of government was broad enough that the states insisted on adding amendments over the objections of the Federalists. Twelve amendments were put forth by James Madison, but only ten were adopted and voted on.
Fear of jurisdictional usurpation was as real 230 years ago as it is today. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough people who see it as a problem. If we are ever to win back our nation, understanding jurisdictional limitations is a necessary first step.
SOURCES:
1 Henry P. Johnston, ed., The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay: 1782–1793, 4 Vols. (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1891), 3:305-306.
2 Adopted unanimously June 12, 1776, by the Virginia Convention of Delegates.
Respectfully,
Mark
The first place to go to understand the proper relationship between church and state is to study the nature of jurisdictions. Jurisdictional separation deals with the legitimate boundaries of authority. A person who owns a piece of property has jurisdiction over his own property, but he does not have jurisdiction over someone else’s property. A property owner can only “speak the law” (juris = law + diction = speak) within the confines of the boundaries of his own property. In this way, a property owner’s jurisdiction is limited. Property lines are legal entities that limit authority.
What’s true of property is also true of civil governments. State governments have limited jurisdictional authority. A state government and its courts can only “speak the law,” have jurisdiction over, those who reside within the boundaries of the state or those passing through. That’s why each state has its own constitution, courts, and elected officials. An elected official in one state has no jurisdictional authority in or over another state.
In the same way, the Federal government’s jurisdiction is designed to be limited by the Constitution, although such limitations are not often acknowledged by the courts, the President, or Congress. These delegated agencies are always attempting to test the limits of their specified boundary markers. Nevertheless, the Constitution is a jurisdictionally limited document in that its enumerated powers are the only ones it possesses. Powers not specified in the Constitution are retained by the individual states as set forth in their constitutions. These Federal jurisdictional limitations are set forth in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution:
Ninth: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
Tenth: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Jurisdictional limitation at all levels of civil government is one of the governmental principles that makes America a stable and free nation.
When the Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787, it did not contain a bill of rights. The constitution as drafted was sent to the states for ratification. The Federalists supported it while the Anti-Federalists opposed it. The Anti-Federalists wanted a bill of rights. The Federalists argued that a bill of rights was unnecessary since the Constitution created a national government of enumerated powers. With this form of government, unless a power was actually spelled out in the document, it did not exist. Since the Constitution did not give the national government legislative power over religion, Federalists considered a bill of rights unnecessary and even dangerous. To mention a subject was thought to give the Federal government control over it. John Jay stated it this way:
Silence and blank paper neither grant nor take away anything. Complaints are also made that the proposed Constitution is not accompanied by a bill of rights; and yet they who make the complaints know, and are content, that no bill of rights accompanied the constitution of this State [New York].1
Jay failed to note George Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776), the English Bill of Rights (1689), and earlier English political documents such as Magna Charta (1215). The specification of rights was part of English history that served as an example to those who had a public mistrust of government.
The Anti-Federalists disagreed with the claim that silence made rights undeniable. They had an innate and historical suspicion of centralized civil government. Without further restraints on basic individual rights, they feared that the Federal government could exercise powers not granted to it because they were not prohibited by the Constitution. They argued that a formal declaration of rights was essential to secure certain liberties. Virginia, New York, Rhode Island, and North Carolina requested amendments concerning freedom of religion, press, assembly, and speech. The Virginia Convention stated the following regarding religion in Article 16 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights:
That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore, all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.2
Borrowing language from the Declaration of Independence, the Federalists made it clear that this and other rights are not granted by civil governments but are “natural and unalienable.”
The Anti-Federalists won the argument. Their mistrust of government was broad enough that the states insisted on adding amendments over the objections of the Federalists. Twelve amendments were put forth by James Madison, but only ten were adopted and voted on.
Fear of jurisdictional usurpation was as real 230 years ago as it is today. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough people who see it as a problem. If we are ever to win back our nation, understanding jurisdictional limitations is a necessary first step.
SOURCES:
1 Henry P. Johnston, ed., The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay: 1782–1793, 4 Vols. (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1891), 3:305-306.
2 Adopted unanimously June 12, 1776, by the Virginia Convention of Delegates.
Respectfully,
Mark
Monday, October 11, 2010
The Self-Destructive Path of Growing Public Sector Employment
Dear Friends:
“Anyone who wants to work an interesting job, earn a generous salary, enjoy unbeatable, rock-solid job security and, most importantly, advance the public good in pivotal ways would probably favor the federal sector,” said Lily Whiteman, Federal Careers Expert. This quote represents a troubling new reality in today’s American society: The public sector has become more attractive than the private sector. Today, however, government favoritism toward public workers has skewed the sense of values that are the American capitalist hallmark. Ms. Whiteman continues, “… government employees seem to work shorter hours, have more vacation time, access unbelievable health care, never worry about job security and even make more money than people slugging it out in the private sector.” Sounds like a dream job, right? Work less, don’t worry about losing your job over poor performance, get better benefits, and get paid more for doing a job that contributes very little to the nation’s output. So what, now, are parents supposed to tell their kids, “Weasel your way into a government job and you’ll be set for life”? The reality of the situation is that the government always looks out for its own, even when the economy is spinning down the toilet.
The growth of public-sector compensation and benefits in the context of a global recession is not only a travesty, it’s a serious impediment to the future growth of our country. Why would a graduate from a top university pursue a job in the private sector (in which jobs are now even more scarce) when, after nine years of pay hikes and benefits in the context of a struggling economy, the compensation of federal civil servants is now, on average, twice that of private-sector workers?
Recently, another $26 billion has been appropriated to the States, which, President Obama claims is about “saving the jobs of teachers and other essential professionals.” It wasn’t about saving jobs, it was about using taxpayer money to pay off teacher union bosses, reward them for past political favors, and get the votes for the Democrats for the all-important November election. The additional funding is also to help bail out the bloated pension plans that guarantee a healthy yearly gain when the S&P is down over 10%-12% for the decade! Washington doesn’t seem to care about the busted 401(k) system of the private-sector worker, they just want to shove their free-spending agenda down our throats while they raise taxes.
The United States right now needs to be moving in the opposite direction of the one we’re currently heading in. We need the brightest college graduates innovating in the private sector, not working as overcompensated, underperforming federal employees. We need lower tax rates to stimulate private industry. We need to reorganize the flawed and broken pension system. We need to stop bailing out the unions in return for votes.
Until we restore the core values that have driven this nation since its founding, our country will keep heading down this dangerous and self-destructive path.
Respectfully,
Mark
“Anyone who wants to work an interesting job, earn a generous salary, enjoy unbeatable, rock-solid job security and, most importantly, advance the public good in pivotal ways would probably favor the federal sector,” said Lily Whiteman, Federal Careers Expert. This quote represents a troubling new reality in today’s American society: The public sector has become more attractive than the private sector. Today, however, government favoritism toward public workers has skewed the sense of values that are the American capitalist hallmark. Ms. Whiteman continues, “… government employees seem to work shorter hours, have more vacation time, access unbelievable health care, never worry about job security and even make more money than people slugging it out in the private sector.” Sounds like a dream job, right? Work less, don’t worry about losing your job over poor performance, get better benefits, and get paid more for doing a job that contributes very little to the nation’s output. So what, now, are parents supposed to tell their kids, “Weasel your way into a government job and you’ll be set for life”? The reality of the situation is that the government always looks out for its own, even when the economy is spinning down the toilet.
The growth of public-sector compensation and benefits in the context of a global recession is not only a travesty, it’s a serious impediment to the future growth of our country. Why would a graduate from a top university pursue a job in the private sector (in which jobs are now even more scarce) when, after nine years of pay hikes and benefits in the context of a struggling economy, the compensation of federal civil servants is now, on average, twice that of private-sector workers?
Recently, another $26 billion has been appropriated to the States, which, President Obama claims is about “saving the jobs of teachers and other essential professionals.” It wasn’t about saving jobs, it was about using taxpayer money to pay off teacher union bosses, reward them for past political favors, and get the votes for the Democrats for the all-important November election. The additional funding is also to help bail out the bloated pension plans that guarantee a healthy yearly gain when the S&P is down over 10%-12% for the decade! Washington doesn’t seem to care about the busted 401(k) system of the private-sector worker, they just want to shove their free-spending agenda down our throats while they raise taxes.
The United States right now needs to be moving in the opposite direction of the one we’re currently heading in. We need the brightest college graduates innovating in the private sector, not working as overcompensated, underperforming federal employees. We need lower tax rates to stimulate private industry. We need to reorganize the flawed and broken pension system. We need to stop bailing out the unions in return for votes.
Until we restore the core values that have driven this nation since its founding, our country will keep heading down this dangerous and self-destructive path.
Respectfully,
Mark
Monday, October 4, 2010
Sam Adams to America: “I told you so.”
Dear Friends:
Upon the whole, we are too apt to charge those misfortunes to the want of energy in our government, which we have brought upon ourselves by dissipation and extravagance. – “Candidus”
It has become clear that since the time of our beloved founders, we Americans have experienced a slide into tyranny. At what point did things go wrong?
Many advocates of States’ rights would probably respond with answers such as “The Civil War” or Lincoln’s presidency. However, the problem goes back even further in time to the first great advance of tyranny in America: “The Constitutional Convention.”
Not many Christians know that the Constitution was written during a period of unprecedented freedom among any people in history (between 1776 and 1787). Promising originally only to revise the Articles of Confederation, the framers emerged from Philadelphia with a completely different document that greatly centralized powers at the Federal level relative to what had been. It was a conscious coup on the part of those in favor of strong centralized power.
Most people don’t realize, then, that the Constitution was the first great government expansion in this country – an expansion that set the precedent for much of the tyranny we experience today, believe it or not.
It was also vigorously opposed by some of the greatest advocates of liberty in our history, even though they lost out to the conspiracy in Philadelphia. It is time we reaffirmed the ideals of freedom for which they once fought, and which for the space of a few years made this country free.
The Real Sons of Liberty
Many of the principal fathers of the American Revolution saw today’s problems coming in their own time. Despite common sentiment and the textbook version of American history, these most prescient men are the least known, least read, and often completely forgotten figures of that time. They are not Washington, Madison, and Hamilton. They are not the authors of the Federalist Papers. These latter were the tyrants in the eyes of those whom I mention.
These men were the authors of the Anti-Federalist Papers. Few people today even read the much more publicized Federalist Papers. They’re not taught about them in school. The Papers’ language and concepts are often found too lofty and difficult, despite the fact that these Papers were mere newspaper editorials of their time. Few people know of them. Fewer read them.
Even fewer read the opposition of the day – the tea party types of the day – the Anti-Federalist Papers.
Yet these liberty-minded leaders saw the centralizing forces at work during their day as the sinews of tyranny. They knew absolutely where centralized government power would lead. On this principle they opposed the Constitution itself, for it ceded too much power to the central government.
One of them, writing under the pseudonym “The Federal Farmer” (possibly Richard Henry Lee), foresaw the direction of centralizing power as a departure from a free society, but also as the long-term agenda of a few ambitious leaders:
The plan of government now proposed [the Constitution] is evidently calculated totally to change, in time, our condition as a people. Instead of being thirteen republics, under a federal head, it is clearly designed to make us one consolidated government.… This consolidation of the states has been the object of several men in this country for sometime past. Whether such a change… can be effected without convulsions and civil wars; whether such a change will not totally destroy the liberties of this country – time only can determine.1
The Judicial Back Door
Prominent among their concerns was fear that a Supreme Court would create a path to tyranny (especially of the wealthy over the common man). “Candidus,” attributed to Samuel Adams, warned that it would “occasion innumerable controversies; as almost every cause (even those originally between citizens of the same State) may be so contrived as to be carried to this federal court.”2 This means, effectively, the end of State sovereignty, for a partisan Court could construe any decision, and that decision would stand for every State.
This fear materialized quickly after the Federalist proponents pressured the States to adopt the Constitution. Within a mere fifteen years the nationalist John Marshall framed the system and then decided the very case he framed – Marbury v. Madison (1803) – in favor of the nationalists against the Jeffersonians. The decision established the doctrine euphemized as “judicial review” where the Supreme Court can essentially legislate through their decisions.
Marshall struck again at States’ rights in McCulloch v. Maryland (1824), determining that unelected directors acting in their own self-interest could establish national banks with the States and yet remain exempt from State regulation. The whole decision was a national scam that profited big banks and expansion of government by unelected leaders.
Having the Supreme Court in these cases all but ensured that the people would be tyrannized, just as Candidus said. When the “right of election itself” is “transferred from the people to their rulers” the people have been subjected to the most fundamental tyranny. So writes the Anti-Federalist “Brutus” on the even lesser issue of Congress’ rights to manipulate election parameters: “If the people of America will submit to a constitution that will vest in the hands of any body of men a right to deprive them by law of the privilege of a fair election, they will submit to almost anything.”3 When a yawning and complacent populace agrees to such advances of tyranny, it will take more than education to restore freedom – it will take pain:
Reasoning with them will be in vain, they must be left until they are brought to reflection by feeling oppression – they will have to wrest from their oppressors, by a strong hand, that which they now [before the Constitution was ratified!] possess, and which they may retain if they will exercise but a moderate share of prudence and firmness.4
States rights were furthered destroyed and judicial review more firmly entrenched after the Civil War, during reconstruction, particularly by the Fourteenth Amendment. Things have only gotten worse over time. So The Federal Farmer’s warning came true, indeed, time has told: States rights were hijacked by the nationalists, and it took a civil war eventually to enforce their tyranny.
Freedom and Self-Government
While problems can arise also under a decentralized system of freedom, these will not compare to the tyrannies that grow from the opposite. Candidus warns that we must “distinguish between the evils that arise from extraneous causes and our private imprudencies, and those that arise from our government.”5
Power over vital areas of human action such as commerce, legislation, defense, etc., Candidus realized as too precious and precarious to leave to the decisions of a few men to enact by governmental force; it should rather be left as decentralized as possible. Paying lip-service to the beloved leaders of the day, he foresees that “though this country is now blessed with a Washington, Frnaklin [sic], Hancock and Adams,” elected leaders shall not always possess such integrity, and “posterity may have reason to rue the day when their political welfare depends on the decision of men who may fill the places of these worthies.”6
In such times as he foresaw, when we lament the decisions of those elected leaders, we ought also to lament the centralizing nature of the Federal government, and educate ourselves in the type of freedom spoken of by here by Candidus. This type of freedom comes from the people, not from the government. But this presupposes a people who can govern themselves, and possess themselves in responsibility and integrity. Freedom begins with the will of a people to live free, not with a people looking to power to secure themselves benefits at the expense of others. Indeed, Candidus warned that “coertion with some persons seems the principal object, but I believe we have more to expect from the affections of the people, than from an armed body of men.”7
Freedom, again, begins in the affections of the people. But like now, Candidus saw corrupt government as enabled by a pacified, fearful, and gluttonous people. He wrote this astoundingly prophetic passage:
Upon the whole, we are too apt to charge those misfortunes to the want of energy in our government, which we have brought upon ourselves by dissipation and extravagance; and we are led to flatter ourselves, that the proposed Constitution will restore us to peace and happiness, notwithstanding we should neglect to acquire these blessings by industry and frugality. – I will venture to affirm, that the extravagance of our British importations, – the discouragement of our own manufactures, and the luxurious living of all ranks and degrees, have been the principle cause of all the evils we now experience; and a general reform in these particulars, would have a greater tendency to promote the welfare of these States, than any measures that could be adopted. – No government under heaven could have preserved a people from ruin, or kept their commerce from declining, when they were exhausting their valuable resources in paying for superfluities, and running themselves in debt to foreigners, and to each other for articles of folly and dissipation: – While this is the case, we may contend about forms of government, but no establishment will enrich a people, who wantonly spend beyond their income.8
I wish I had time further to unpack this prophecy with parallels to current events, but I think you can well enough detect the highlights. I cannot think of a more relevant prophetic warning to America – a warning which went unheeded and which now we bear the consequences. Debt to both foreign nations and consumer corporations, largely due to extravagances in individual living, coupled with aversion to work and save. This is true at the level of individuals as well as at every level of government, punctuated by the bailouts of Marshall’s beneficiaries, the over-leveraged big banks, and continual pork projects for favored big-businesses. And sure enough, the government – despite its endless promises to the contrary – has not saved us from decline and moral decay, nor can it.
Assuming the ascription of “Candidus” to Samuel Adams is correct, we should expect a keen scolding were he here today. We should expect another Boston Tea Party over the coercive encroachments of government. And with this we should expect a severe inventory of our private lives, our manner of work ethic, our manner of thrift, and our moral integrity to sacrifice for the cause of freedom.
We have failed in all of these areas, and we have received the government we deserve. Sam could well say, “I told you so.”
But for some reason I doubt he would. I suspect he would rather get to work on the proper remedy – beginning with personal repentance over our moral failures, continuing with an establishment of a lifestyle of work and frugality, and leading into a program of rolling back the size and scope of government until the only government officials that individuals have contact with come from the local county.
SOURCES:
1 In The Complete Anti-Federalist, 7 vol., ed. by Herbert J. Storing (University of Chicago Press, 1981), 2.8.4.
2 “Essays by Candidus,” in The Complete Anti-Federalist, 4.9.13.
3 “Essays of Brutus,” in The Complete Anti-Federalist, 2.9.53.
4 “Essays of Brutus,” in The Complete Anti-Federalist, 2.9.53.
5 “Essays by Candidus,” in The Complete Anti-Federalist, 7 vol., ed. by Herbert J. Storing (University of Chicago Press, 1981), 4.9.13.
6 “Essays by Candidus,” in The Complete Anti-Federalist, 4.9.15.
7 “Essays by Candidus,” in The Complete Anti-Federalist, 4.9.15.
8 “Essays by Candidus,” in The Complete Anti-Federalist, 7 vol., ed. by Herbert J. Storing (University of Chicago Press, 1981), 4.9.18.
Respectfully,
Mark
Upon the whole, we are too apt to charge those misfortunes to the want of energy in our government, which we have brought upon ourselves by dissipation and extravagance. – “Candidus”
It has become clear that since the time of our beloved founders, we Americans have experienced a slide into tyranny. At what point did things go wrong?
Many advocates of States’ rights would probably respond with answers such as “The Civil War” or Lincoln’s presidency. However, the problem goes back even further in time to the first great advance of tyranny in America: “The Constitutional Convention.”
Not many Christians know that the Constitution was written during a period of unprecedented freedom among any people in history (between 1776 and 1787). Promising originally only to revise the Articles of Confederation, the framers emerged from Philadelphia with a completely different document that greatly centralized powers at the Federal level relative to what had been. It was a conscious coup on the part of those in favor of strong centralized power.
Most people don’t realize, then, that the Constitution was the first great government expansion in this country – an expansion that set the precedent for much of the tyranny we experience today, believe it or not.
It was also vigorously opposed by some of the greatest advocates of liberty in our history, even though they lost out to the conspiracy in Philadelphia. It is time we reaffirmed the ideals of freedom for which they once fought, and which for the space of a few years made this country free.
The Real Sons of Liberty
Many of the principal fathers of the American Revolution saw today’s problems coming in their own time. Despite common sentiment and the textbook version of American history, these most prescient men are the least known, least read, and often completely forgotten figures of that time. They are not Washington, Madison, and Hamilton. They are not the authors of the Federalist Papers. These latter were the tyrants in the eyes of those whom I mention.
These men were the authors of the Anti-Federalist Papers. Few people today even read the much more publicized Federalist Papers. They’re not taught about them in school. The Papers’ language and concepts are often found too lofty and difficult, despite the fact that these Papers were mere newspaper editorials of their time. Few people know of them. Fewer read them.
Even fewer read the opposition of the day – the tea party types of the day – the Anti-Federalist Papers.
Yet these liberty-minded leaders saw the centralizing forces at work during their day as the sinews of tyranny. They knew absolutely where centralized government power would lead. On this principle they opposed the Constitution itself, for it ceded too much power to the central government.
One of them, writing under the pseudonym “The Federal Farmer” (possibly Richard Henry Lee), foresaw the direction of centralizing power as a departure from a free society, but also as the long-term agenda of a few ambitious leaders:
The plan of government now proposed [the Constitution] is evidently calculated totally to change, in time, our condition as a people. Instead of being thirteen republics, under a federal head, it is clearly designed to make us one consolidated government.… This consolidation of the states has been the object of several men in this country for sometime past. Whether such a change… can be effected without convulsions and civil wars; whether such a change will not totally destroy the liberties of this country – time only can determine.1
The Judicial Back Door
Prominent among their concerns was fear that a Supreme Court would create a path to tyranny (especially of the wealthy over the common man). “Candidus,” attributed to Samuel Adams, warned that it would “occasion innumerable controversies; as almost every cause (even those originally between citizens of the same State) may be so contrived as to be carried to this federal court.”2 This means, effectively, the end of State sovereignty, for a partisan Court could construe any decision, and that decision would stand for every State.
This fear materialized quickly after the Federalist proponents pressured the States to adopt the Constitution. Within a mere fifteen years the nationalist John Marshall framed the system and then decided the very case he framed – Marbury v. Madison (1803) – in favor of the nationalists against the Jeffersonians. The decision established the doctrine euphemized as “judicial review” where the Supreme Court can essentially legislate through their decisions.
Marshall struck again at States’ rights in McCulloch v. Maryland (1824), determining that unelected directors acting in their own self-interest could establish national banks with the States and yet remain exempt from State regulation. The whole decision was a national scam that profited big banks and expansion of government by unelected leaders.
Having the Supreme Court in these cases all but ensured that the people would be tyrannized, just as Candidus said. When the “right of election itself” is “transferred from the people to their rulers” the people have been subjected to the most fundamental tyranny. So writes the Anti-Federalist “Brutus” on the even lesser issue of Congress’ rights to manipulate election parameters: “If the people of America will submit to a constitution that will vest in the hands of any body of men a right to deprive them by law of the privilege of a fair election, they will submit to almost anything.”3 When a yawning and complacent populace agrees to such advances of tyranny, it will take more than education to restore freedom – it will take pain:
Reasoning with them will be in vain, they must be left until they are brought to reflection by feeling oppression – they will have to wrest from their oppressors, by a strong hand, that which they now [before the Constitution was ratified!] possess, and which they may retain if they will exercise but a moderate share of prudence and firmness.4
States rights were furthered destroyed and judicial review more firmly entrenched after the Civil War, during reconstruction, particularly by the Fourteenth Amendment. Things have only gotten worse over time. So The Federal Farmer’s warning came true, indeed, time has told: States rights were hijacked by the nationalists, and it took a civil war eventually to enforce their tyranny.
Freedom and Self-Government
While problems can arise also under a decentralized system of freedom, these will not compare to the tyrannies that grow from the opposite. Candidus warns that we must “distinguish between the evils that arise from extraneous causes and our private imprudencies, and those that arise from our government.”5
Power over vital areas of human action such as commerce, legislation, defense, etc., Candidus realized as too precious and precarious to leave to the decisions of a few men to enact by governmental force; it should rather be left as decentralized as possible. Paying lip-service to the beloved leaders of the day, he foresees that “though this country is now blessed with a Washington, Frnaklin [sic], Hancock and Adams,” elected leaders shall not always possess such integrity, and “posterity may have reason to rue the day when their political welfare depends on the decision of men who may fill the places of these worthies.”6
In such times as he foresaw, when we lament the decisions of those elected leaders, we ought also to lament the centralizing nature of the Federal government, and educate ourselves in the type of freedom spoken of by here by Candidus. This type of freedom comes from the people, not from the government. But this presupposes a people who can govern themselves, and possess themselves in responsibility and integrity. Freedom begins with the will of a people to live free, not with a people looking to power to secure themselves benefits at the expense of others. Indeed, Candidus warned that “coertion with some persons seems the principal object, but I believe we have more to expect from the affections of the people, than from an armed body of men.”7
Freedom, again, begins in the affections of the people. But like now, Candidus saw corrupt government as enabled by a pacified, fearful, and gluttonous people. He wrote this astoundingly prophetic passage:
Upon the whole, we are too apt to charge those misfortunes to the want of energy in our government, which we have brought upon ourselves by dissipation and extravagance; and we are led to flatter ourselves, that the proposed Constitution will restore us to peace and happiness, notwithstanding we should neglect to acquire these blessings by industry and frugality. – I will venture to affirm, that the extravagance of our British importations, – the discouragement of our own manufactures, and the luxurious living of all ranks and degrees, have been the principle cause of all the evils we now experience; and a general reform in these particulars, would have a greater tendency to promote the welfare of these States, than any measures that could be adopted. – No government under heaven could have preserved a people from ruin, or kept their commerce from declining, when they were exhausting their valuable resources in paying for superfluities, and running themselves in debt to foreigners, and to each other for articles of folly and dissipation: – While this is the case, we may contend about forms of government, but no establishment will enrich a people, who wantonly spend beyond their income.8
I wish I had time further to unpack this prophecy with parallels to current events, but I think you can well enough detect the highlights. I cannot think of a more relevant prophetic warning to America – a warning which went unheeded and which now we bear the consequences. Debt to both foreign nations and consumer corporations, largely due to extravagances in individual living, coupled with aversion to work and save. This is true at the level of individuals as well as at every level of government, punctuated by the bailouts of Marshall’s beneficiaries, the over-leveraged big banks, and continual pork projects for favored big-businesses. And sure enough, the government – despite its endless promises to the contrary – has not saved us from decline and moral decay, nor can it.
Assuming the ascription of “Candidus” to Samuel Adams is correct, we should expect a keen scolding were he here today. We should expect another Boston Tea Party over the coercive encroachments of government. And with this we should expect a severe inventory of our private lives, our manner of work ethic, our manner of thrift, and our moral integrity to sacrifice for the cause of freedom.
We have failed in all of these areas, and we have received the government we deserve. Sam could well say, “I told you so.”
But for some reason I doubt he would. I suspect he would rather get to work on the proper remedy – beginning with personal repentance over our moral failures, continuing with an establishment of a lifestyle of work and frugality, and leading into a program of rolling back the size and scope of government until the only government officials that individuals have contact with come from the local county.
SOURCES:
1 In The Complete Anti-Federalist, 7 vol., ed. by Herbert J. Storing (University of Chicago Press, 1981), 2.8.4.
2 “Essays by Candidus,” in The Complete Anti-Federalist, 4.9.13.
3 “Essays of Brutus,” in The Complete Anti-Federalist, 2.9.53.
4 “Essays of Brutus,” in The Complete Anti-Federalist, 2.9.53.
5 “Essays by Candidus,” in The Complete Anti-Federalist, 7 vol., ed. by Herbert J. Storing (University of Chicago Press, 1981), 4.9.13.
6 “Essays by Candidus,” in The Complete Anti-Federalist, 4.9.15.
7 “Essays by Candidus,” in The Complete Anti-Federalist, 4.9.15.
8 “Essays by Candidus,” in The Complete Anti-Federalist, 7 vol., ed. by Herbert J. Storing (University of Chicago Press, 1981), 4.9.18.
Respectfully,
Mark
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