Why Does The ACLU Want To Censor Free Speech?
From sectarian prayer to wearing a Christian t-shirt, the ACLU is on the prowl and clamping down on forms of religious expression.
On today’s program Stu Epperson, Jr. welcomes Mike Johnson of the Alliance Defense Fund.
They’ll talk about some of the hot issues and take your calls.
Read Stu’s Article:
Prayer…or Porn? I’m Offended!
By Stuart Epperson, Jr.
If you’re offended by prayer at a county commissioners’ meeting, you’re in luck! A multi-million dollar, pro-bono, tax-exempt, legal powerhouse known as the ACLU will fight for you!
If you’re offended by porn in a text book or at a public art gallery, tough luck! The ACLU will defend the porn. Why do they want to censor prayer but not porn?
Why would the ACLU, which, by the way, stands for the American Civil Liberties Union, be advocating censorship and intolerance at all?
And now they have sued you and me, the citizens of Forsyth County. The ACLU wants to censor the speech of a Muslim cleric, a Hindu priest, a Jewish rabbi, or a Methodist minister.
Some of these prayers may even offend me! But does the constitution give me a right ‘not’ to be offended? Of course not! Is not this pluralism of expression and tolerance what makes America great?
Even the United States Congress has opened with these offensive ’sectarian’ prayers for over 140 years. And how many converts or government sponsored churches have resulted? The answer: zero.
Unless our elected officials stand up to this bully, the ACLU will have its way. Yes to porn and NO to prayer!
Beaufort Bailey, Walter Marshall and Ted Kaplan — three of your elected officials — have been against appealing the case on “political” grounds.
Friends, this is not about politics. It’s not about Republican or Democrat, right or left. It’s about “right or wrong”! It’s about free speech versus censorship.
Commissioners, please stand with us. The voters and the taxpayers of Forsyth County in protecting the right to freedom of expression. Freedom is always worth the price it takes to defend it!
It cost our founders a lot more than a few taxpayer dollars; many lost their very lives. Let’s send the ACLU bullies home so they can go back to defending porn and stop destroying prayer!
Let us All Pray!
Stay connected!
127 Comments on “Why Does The ACLU Want To Censor Free Speech?”
Stu
Mike Johnson mad some points today about the founder of the ACLU. Do you or did he leave any websites, links or literature we can research to found out more about the origins of the ACLU?
thanks
Don Leshnock
If you want to have prayer, do it before or after your government meetings. I don’t want my elected officials praying a government meeting. Christians are the kings of censorship, don’t pretend that you’re being oppressed.
I must be missing something.
What seems to get the ACLU all twisted up in situations like these is if there is a hint that religious activities will be done as part of a function that the state is involved in — even partially. They want to make sure that the state does not appear to be condoning any particular faith, so they take action to make sure that these activities are removed from these functions.
Note that it’s not a question of who’s offended; it’s a question of whether or not the state appears to be advocating a particular faith. The offense of particular people may help the attorneys present their case, but it’s not the focus of the case.
Porn, on the other hand, has no religious affiliation(*), so it’s much more of a matter of free speech. In any case, I can’t think of any state functions that put on a performance and so might seem to be advocating it; can you? (The people are permitted free speech under the First Amendment; I’m not sure that the state ever is.)
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not arguing for the ACLU; frankly, I wish that more people could see the difference between an expression of faith and advocating that faith, so that this wouldn’t even be an issue. But as long as you are taking them on with the idea that the majority of the people are (or have been) religious and that religious expression ought to be allowed, or that this is a question of free speech, you run the risk of missing their argument completely.
Please, though, discuss. I’m sure I’m missing something, and want to know what.
(*) Most of the time, anyway. I suppose Rule 34 applies here as well. But you get the idea.
What kind of textbooks did you see/find that contained porn, Stu?
Could you give us a list of titles, so we can, uh, keep a look out for them…you know, so we can avoid them[grin]?
If those hateful, antagonizing, monsters who control/work for the website “Republican Faith Chat” can manage to stay in buisness by offending/lying/attacking any and everyone then there’s hope for us all, isn’t there?
Rule 34 always applies Matt.
O Nata Lux: “If you want to have prayer, do it before or after your government meetings. I don’t want my elected officials praying a government meeting. Christians are the kings of censorship, don’t pretend that you’re being oppressed.”
Prayer has been part of America’s heritage. From the Declaration of Independence, which inferred the Christian God (not the Muslim god, or Hindu gods, or anyother gods, as creator to Franklin Delano Roosevelts speaches during WWII (specifically Dec. 6th) prayer has been part of this nations culture and past. To deny it is to eradicate a significant part of the culture. Even our holidays relate to the God of the Bible. Thanksgiving and Easter are definitely Christian in origins as is of course Christmas.
Christ proclaimed all people as equals. Women and slaves were considered all equal in the sight of God, and this at a time when women were property and slaves had no rights.
The US was established as a Christian nation. THat is fact whether you like it or not. For proof just read the first constitutions of the newly formed states. The all required that office holders hold certain Christian beliefs and many even limited offices to certain religions. Over a 50 year period, these statues were revised and a person’s religious affiliation had no say in whether or not a person could run for public office.
I am sick and tired of the outright assault on our culture. I know at least one atheist that agrees with me that prayer should not be banned at government or school events and neither should Christmas displays. She recognizes the assaults on our way of life.
I cannot think of a single song about America that does not include God. NOT ONE. The Battle Hymn of the Republic is Christian.
I will tell you what Chief Seattle told the whiteman. You cannot rub us out of your conscious, our names are on your waters……You, the ACLU, cannot rub Christianity out of conscious its faith is written into our history.
It would do everyone well to read Deu.8: 10-20. Also Deu: 15:8. IF you don’t believe in God then consider that a nation that forgets its history and what made it great is eventually doomed.
Look around you America, do you see how the Left has brought it down. The foundations are now crumbling and soon you will feel the full effects of having forgotten where your blessings come from.
There is still time to turn things around, but we will have to go through the economic hell we created. It now all depends on whether or not we emerge stronger or whether our children inherit a country none of us would recognize.
John: What kind of textbooks did you see/find that contained porn, Stu?
Without actual titles to go on, my best guess is that it’s a referral to some textbook that contains nudity; maybe there was a nipple in a biology textbook or an art textbook that was threatening to traumatize the children or something. Of course, the peculiar American delusion that nudity equals sex equals pornography is something that could generate its own entire conversation.
Mike: From the Declaration of Independence, which inferred the Christian God (not the Muslim god, or Hindu gods, or anyother gods, as creator
The Muslim God created, too.
But you’re begging the question. The only reference to God that the Declaration of Independence makes are “Nature’s God” and “Creator”. The Christian God is Creator, yes, and He is nature’s God, but He is also much, much more. One must remember that the author of this document, Thomas Jefferson, was a Deist. He believed in a Creator God, and in a God of nature, but He most certainly did not believe in the Christian God. He said many things about the subject; for example, “History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose.”; and “And the day will come, when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His Father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva, in the brain of Jupiter.”
Mike: to Franklin Delano Roosevelts speaches during WWII (specifically Dec. 6th)
Are you talking about his “infamy” speech on December 8, 1941? Where he said “so help us God”? The mere inclusion of God does not denote a reference to the Christian God. It’s also a phrase that tended then (and still does, ocassionally) to be used without people really considering that they might actually be asking God for help; did the slogan of the Nazi armed forces in WWII (“Gott mit uns” — “God with us”) indicate that theirs was a nation devoted to Christian ideals — or, as you put it later, was “established as a Christian nation”?
Mike: prayer has been part of this nations culture and past. To deny it is to eradicate a significant part of the culture.
I don’t think anyone’s denying it. Is anyone actually saying that there aren’t references to God in historical documents, or even that prayer has not been part of this nation’s culture and past?
Mike: Even our holidays relate to the God of the Bible. Thanksgiving and Easter are definitely Christian in origins as is of course Christmas.
Not all Americans celebrate these holidays. Many of them retain pagan trappings (Easter and Christmas). And many of these holidays are also celebrated in nations which are commonly thought not to be “Christian”. Japan, for example, celebrates Christmas, Easter, and its own Thanksgiving Day (November 23), but it’s primarily Shinto and Buddhist, has never been even primarily Christian, and wasn’t “established as a Christian nation”.
Mike: Christ proclaimed all people as equals.
Did He? I mean, I know He showed that through example, but was it actually proclaimed in the New Testament before Paul?
Mike: The US was established as a Christian nation. THat is fact whether you like it or not.
Really? Curious that they didn’t think to mention that in the founding document of the nation, then, isn’t it? In fact, its only mentions of faith are exclusionary, e.g., “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust” (Article VI, section 3), and “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” (Amendment 1). The Presidential Oath of Office doesn’t even contain the phrase “so help me God” or a requirement to swear on a Bible (Article II, section 7); in fact, that bit from Article VI might be seen to prohibit it, or at least make it optional.
In 1797, the United States made a treaty with Tripoli. They made a reassurance to that Islamic nation: “the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” It was under Washington’s Presidency; it was approved by the Senate under John Adams, who greatly influenced the Constitution.
The Supreme Court forged a three-part test to determine if a law is permissible under the First Amendment, and added some commentary:
A law must have a secular purpose.
It must have a primary effect which neither advances nor inhibits religion.
It must avoid excessive entanglement of church and state.
The separation of church and state is a wonderful American principle supported not only by minorities, such as Jews, Moslems, and unbelievers, but applauded by most Protestant churches that recognize that it has allowed religion to flourish in this nation. It keeps the majority from pressuring the minority.
“Under God” was not in the Pledge of Allegiance until 1954; “In God We Trust” was not approved for paper currency until 1956. (It appeared on some coins earlier, but so did other maxims like “Mind Your Business”.)
With all this in mind, how can you claim that “[t]he US was established as a Christian nation”?
Mike: For proof just read the first constitutions of the newly formed states. The all required that office holders hold certain Christian beliefs and many even limited offices to certain religions. Over a 50 year period, these statues were revised and a person’s religious affiliation had no say in whether or not a person could run for public office.
Yeah. And there’s that annoying bit about how federal law trumps state law. Frankly, I’d rather see the prejudice disposed of.
How does this religion-based exclusionism jive with your belief that Christ proclaimed all people as equals?
Mike: I am sick and tired of the outright assault on our culture. I know at least one atheist that agrees with me that prayer should not be banned at government or school events and neither should Christmas displays. She recognizes the assaults on our way of life.
Let me be clear. I’d prefer that these things were permitted, too, and that people would understand that the expression of faith is not the same as advocating a faith.
I don’t think the answer is to revise history and pretend that the nation was established as Christian somehow, though.
Mike: I cannot think of a single song about America that does not include God. NOT ONE. The Battle Hymn of the Republic is Christian.
Again, inclusion of “God” does not of necessity denote Christian ideals. And while songs can stir feelings of patriotism, they do not necessarily reflect the principles of the nation’s establishment.
Do any of these songs reference the human need for Christ’s blood to remove the penalty for sin? Any of them? Do any of them even refer to the deity of Christ?
Let’s not water down the message of Christianity so that we can pretend it exists where it’s, at best, only alluded to.
Mike: It would do everyone well to read Deu.8: 10-20.
You know that these were statements and promises made to Israel, right? That they don’t necessarily apply to the United States?
Mike: Also Deu: 15:8.
But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he wanteth.
Interesting that you would refer to this verse in light of your rejection of establishments that attempt to lend a hand to the poor, I should think.
People in our nation’s history often used Christian images or practices (and they have been used in the history of many nations); but I think it a bit misguided to try to tie Christianity into our nation’s fabric so deeply that one thinks that the actions of the United States or its politicians are somehow “Christian”, or even that they should somehow be compelled to be. To do so debases Christianity. Christ — and, I would hope, His church — are beyond such petty politicking and strongarm tactics. He calls us to be something deeper and better than any nation could ever be. Far better for us to try to be Christ in this world than to try to impose Christ on some worldly system.
MattF. post 7,
Well, that’s one of the reasons why I wanted some book titles[aside from a cheap thrill. Hey, why lie?]I was thinking that the text books in question might be medical textbooks/journals myself, as I have some medical/anatomy textbooks of my own, as well as some art/sketch and true crime books that contain drawings/photographs of the nude human form. Bottom line, some things are I feel are undoubtedly recognizable as pornography by everyone, and I think that all of us reading know what kind of entertainments and magazine images I’m talking about without my having to get into details[Need a hint? If it's only sold in a "specialty store" that contains a large, conspicuous X somewhere at the entrance or sign, on a shelf at a height exceeding five feet, and/or can only be sold to people over 18 years of age, then it's probably the real stuff.]. I think that if someone is perverted and WANTS to look for erotica, then they will be able to find it in whatever medium that’s available. One just needs to decide for themselves if an identification of Porn seems legitimate or the product of hyperbole and act accordingly as best as one can with such an issue that is so open to personal interpretation.
geez Matt, get a grip. You can twist the truth so you believe it, but please don’t take people for fools and try to convince others that you’ve just argued that we weren’t founded on the Christian faith. It’s already mostly removed from the courts, schools, homes and public property so that everyone will believe you 10 years from now, but for those of us who grew up in a God fearing nation, we know. Shame on you for being a part of the population that wants to remove God from our country. Personally, I beg Him every day not to remove his hand of protection and provision from us. If you had a lick of sense in that head of yours, you would too. Go to an atheist web site and annoy them, would ya?
Mike is right again and Matt like always doesn’t know his history, let’s start with the treaty of tripoli:
In order to understand this statement (“the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion”) it must be read in its historical context, including what we know of Islam in the late eighteenth century. The 1797 treaty is the only treaty that includes the phrase “the Christian religion.” There must be a reason for this when there are other treaties that assume Christianity as the foundation of the nation. It is obvious by reading the original treaty that Tripoli considered America to be a Christian nation.
The treaty constantly contrasts “Christian nations” and “Tripoli,” a Muslim stronghold that served as a base of operations for Barbary pirates. The Barbary pirates habitually preyed on ships from “Christian nations,” enslaving “Christian” seamen. “Barbary was Christendom’s Gulag Archipelago.”
In Joseph Wheelan’s well researched and highly readable book on America’s first war on terror with radical Muslims, we learn that Thomas “Jefferson’s war pitted a modern republic with a free-trade, entrepreneurial creed against a medieval autocracy whose credo was piracy and terror. It matched an ostensibly Christian nation against an avowed Islamic one that professed to despise Christians.”
Wheelan’s historical assessment of the time is on target. “Except for its Native American population and a small percentage of Jews, the United States was solidly Christian, while the North African regencies were just as solidly Muslim-openly hostile toward Christians.”
In drafting the 1797 treaty, the United States had to assure the Dey (ruler) of Tripoli that in its struggle with the pirates, to use the language of the treaty, “it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,” that “the said states never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan [Muslim] nation” due to religious considerations.
A survey of our nation’s state constitutions, charters, national pronouncements, and official declarations of the thirteen state governments would convince any representative from Tripoli that America was a Christian nation. The American consul in Algiers, Joel Barlow, had to construct a treaty that would assure the Dey of Tripoli that troops would not be used to impose Christianity on a Muslim people.
Did it work? No! Did the Muslim pirates stop kidnapping Christians from ships that sailed near the coast of northern Africa because of the treaty? No! They saw the accommodation as a sign of weakness and a lack of will. If Americans were willing to give up the sacredness of their religion for the promise of peace, then they would be willing to give up everything. The pirates did not stop their pirating ways.
It did not take long for American government officials to see that religious and other concessions did little good to stop the piracy and kidnapping. America had been paying ransom since 1785 for survivors of captured ships who had been sold into slavery. This stopped in 1801 when the Pasha of Tripoli broke the treaty because President Thomas Jefferson refused to pay the Pasha’s demands for increased payments.
The Treaty was renegotiated in 1805 after the First Barbary War. There would be no more compromises regarding the Christian religion with the Barbary extortionists.
The statement that “the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion” was removed from the 1805 Treaty. With a navy to back up the treaty, the piracy stopped for a time and was finally stamped out in 1815 with the Second Barbary War.
Then there is the founders themselves:
John Adams
Signer of the Declaration of Independence and Second President of the United States
It is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue.
We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If “Thou shalt not covet,” and “Thou shalt not steal,” were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free.
John Quincy Adams
Sixth President of the United States
The law given from Sinai was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code; it contained many statutes . . . of universal application-laws essential to the existence of men in society, and most of which have been enacted by every nation which ever professed any code of laws.
There are three points of doctrine the belief of which forms the foundation of all morality. The first is the existence of God; the second is the immortality of the human soul; and the third is a future state of rewards and punishments. Suppose it possible for a man to disbelieve either of these three articles of faith and that man will have no conscience, he will have no other law than that of the tiger or the shark. The laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy.
Samuel Adams
Signer of the Declaration of Independence
Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.
Fisher Ames
Framer of the First Amendment
Our liberty depends on our education, our laws, and habits . . . it is founded on morals and religion, whose authority reigns in the heart, and on the influence all these produce on public opinion before that opinion governs rulers.
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Signer of the Declaration of Independence
Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime & pure, and which denounces against the wicked eternal misery, and which insured to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.
Oliver Ellsworth
Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court
The primary objects of government are the peace, order, and prosperity of society. . . . To the promotion of these objects, particularly in a republican government, good morals are essential. Institutions for the promotion of good morals are therefore objects of legislative provision and support: and among these . . . religious institutions are eminently useful and important. . . . The legislature, charged with the great interests of the community, may, and ought to countenance, aid and protect religious institutions-institutions wisely calculated to direct men to the performance of all the duties arising from their connection with each other, and to prevent or repress those evils which flow from unrestrained passion.
Benjamin Franklin
Signer of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence
Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.
I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that “except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing governments by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.
I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.
Thomas Jefferson
Signer of the Declaration of Independence and Third President of the United States
Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains rather than do an immoral act. And never suppose that in any possible situation, or under any circumstances, it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing, however slightly so it may appear to you. Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly. Encourage all your virtuous dispositions, and exercise them whenever an opportunity arises, being assured that they will gain strength by exercise, as a limb of the body does, and that exercise will make them habitual. From the practice of the purest virtue, you may be assured you will derive the most sublime comforts in every moment of life, and in the moment of death.
The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of mankind.
I concur with the author in considering the moral precepts of Jesus as more pure, correct, and sublime than those of ancient philosophers.
James McHenry
Signer of the Constitution
Public utility pleads most forcibly for the general distribution of the Holy Scriptures. The doctrine they preach, the obligations they impose, the punishment they threaten, the rewards they promise, the stamp and image of divinity they bear, which produces a conviction of their truths, can alone secure to society, order and peace, and to our courts of justice and constitutions of government, purity, stability and usefulness. In vain, without the Bible, we increase penal laws and draw entrenchments around our institutions. Bibles are strong entrenchments. Where they abound, men cannot pursue wicked courses, and at the same time enjoy quiet conscience.
Jedediah Morse
Patriot and “Father of American Geography”
To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoys. . . . Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all blessings which flow from them, must fall with them.
Pennsylvania Supreme Court
No free government now exists in the world, unless where Christianity is acknowledged, and is the religion of the country.
Benjamin Rush
Signer of the Declaration of Independence
The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.
We profess to be republicans, and yet we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government, that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by the means of the Bible. For this Divine Book, above all others, favors that equality among mankind, that respect for just laws, and those sober and frugal virtues, which constitute the soul of republicanism.
By renouncing the Bible, philosophers swing from their moorings upon all moral subjects. . . . It is the only correct map of the human heart that ever has been published. . . . All systems of religion, morals, and government not founded upon it [the Bible] must perish, and how consoling the thought, it will not only survive the wreck of these systems but the world itself. “The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.” [Matthew 1:18]
Remember that national crimes require national punishments, and without declaring what punishment awaits this evil, you may venture to assure them that it cannot pass with impunity, unless God shall cease to be just or merciful.
Joseph Story
Supreme Court Justice
Indeed, the right of a society or government to participate in matters of religion will hardly be contested by any persons who believe that piety, religion, and morality are intimately connected with the well being of the state and indispensable to the administrations of civil justice. The promulgation of the great doctrines of religion-the being, and attributes, and providence of one Almighty God; the responsibility to Him for all our actions, founded upon moral accountability; a future state of rewards and punishments; the cultivation of all the personal, social, and benevolent virtues-these never can be a matter of indifference in any well-ordered community. It is, indeed, difficult to conceive how any civilized society can well exist without them.
George Washington
“Father of Our Country”
While just government protects all in their religious rights, true religion affords to government its surest support.
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of man and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice?
And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who, that is a sincere friend to it, can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?
Daniel Webster
Early American Jurist and Senator
If we and our posterity reject religious instruction and authority, violate the rules of eternal justice, trifle with the injunctions of morality, and recklessly destroy the political constitution which holds us together, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us that shall bury all our glory in profound obscurity.
Noah Webster
Founding Educator
The most perfect maxims and examples for regulating your social conduct and domestic economy, as well as the best rules of morality and religion, are to be found in the Bible. . . . The moral principles and precepts found in the scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws. These principles and precepts have truth, immutable truth, for their foundation. . . . All the evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible. . . . For instruction then in social, religious and civil duties resort to the scriptures for the best precepts.
Robert Winthrop
Former Speaker of the US House of Representatives
Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or by a power without them; either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet.
I could go on and on, because unlike you matt I do know my history. Do you want to go into the letter of the separation of church and state? because I’m sure you wouldn’t understand that one neither.
Did you know that even the president called for prayer and fasting: By the President of the United States of America
A PROCLAMATION
AS the safety and prosperity of nations ultimately and essentially depend on the protection and blessing of Almighty God; and the national acknowledgment of this truth is not only an indispensable duty which the people owe to Him,
but a duty whose natural influence is favorable to the promotion of that morality and piety, without which social happiness cannot exist, nor the blessings of a free government be enjoyed; and as this duty, at all times incumbent, is so especially in seasons of difficulty and of danger, when existing or threatening calamities, the just judgments of God against prevalent iniquity are a loud call to repentance and reformation; and as the United States of America are at present placed in a hazardous and afflictive situation, by the unfriendly disposition, conduct and demands of a foreign power, evinced by repeated refusals to receive our messengers of reconciliation and peace, by depredations on our commerce, and the infliction of injuries on very many of our fellow citizens, while engaged in their lawful business on the seas: —Under these considerations it has appeared to me that the duty of imploring the mercy and benediction of Heaven on our country, demands at this time a special attention from its inhabitants.
I HAVE therefore thought it fit to recommend, that Wednesday, the 9th day of May next be observed throughout the United States, as a day of Solemn Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer; That the citizens of these states, abstaining on that day from their customary worldly occupations, offer their devout addresses to the Father of Mercies, agreeably to those forms or methods which they have severally adopted as the most suitable and becoming: That all religious congregations do, with the deepest humility, acknowledge before GOD the manifold sins and transgressions with which we are justly chargeable as individuals and as a nation; beseeching him, at the same time, of his infinite Grace, through the Redeemer of the world, freely to remit all our offences, and to incline us, by his holy spirit, to that sincere repentance and reformation which may afford us reason to hope for his inestimable favor and heavenly benediction; That it be made the subject of particular and earnest supplication, that our country may be protected from all the dangers which threaten it; that our civil and religious privileges may be preserved inviolate, and perpetuated to the latest generations; that our public councils and magistrates may be especially enlightened and directed at this critical period; that the American people may be united in those bonds of amity and mutual confidence, and inspired with that vigor and fortitude by which they have in times past been so highly distinguished, and by which they have obtained such invaluable advantages: That the health of the inhabitants of our land may be preserved, and their agriculture, commerce, fisheries, arts and manufactures be blessed and prospered: That the principles of genuine piety and sound morality may influence the minds and govern the lives of every description of our citizens; and that the blessings of peace, freedom, and pure religion, may be speedily extended to all the nations of the earth.
And finally I recommend, that on the said day; the duties of humiliation and prayer be accompanied by fervent Thanksgiving to the bestower of every good gift, not only for having hitherto protected and preserved the people of these United States in the independent enjoyment of their religious and civil freedom, but also for having prospered them in a wonderful progress of population, and for conferring on them many and great favours conducive to the happiness and prosperity of a nation.
Given under my hand and seal of the United States of America, at Philadelphia, this twenty-third day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight, and of the Independence of the said States the twenty-second.
By the President
JOHN ADAMS
If thisw topic interests you, it might also interest you to know that Colorado has a bill wending its way through the legislature as I type. They’re calling it a “religious bill of rights”.
First of all, let’s get something straight. The very idea is ridiculous. Most of the rights it concerns itself with are already guaranteed under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. There are some of them that overstep those bounds, though, and I’ll get to those in a bit. What concerns me more is that it seems borne out of, and supportive of, a culture that claims that Christians are somehow oppressed in the United States. If you honestly believe that, I invite you to look around the world and through its history and see what it really means for Christians to be oppressed. By constrast, this bill is about maintaining political influence — in other words, it’s about guaranteeing our position so that we can be the oppressors (and we’ve done that in a much stronger sense than what appears here in world history also, regrettably). When over ninety percent of the country claims to be religious, one can safely say that the religious are not a persecuted class.
My apologies, first of all, that the quotes are in all caps. The bill is, too, and I’m quoting it.
THE RELIGIOUS BILL OF RIGHTS FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS AND THEIR PARENTS OR GUARDIANS SHALL INCLUDE, BUT NEED NOT BE LIMITED TO, A DECLARATION THAT A PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENT HAS AN INALIENABLE RIGHT TO:
(I) EXPRESS HIS OR HER RELIGIOUS BELIEFS ON A PUBLIC SCHOOL CAMPUS OR AT A SCHOOL-SPONSORED EVENT TO THE SAME EXTENT AS HE OR SHE MAY EXPRESS A PERSONAL SECULAR VIEWPOINT;
So far, so good. This is all well in line with the First Amendment, and might be considered redundant. If a teacher or a school official or someone speaking as a guest of (or on behalf of) the school were to do this, though, people would start to get nervous — and we’ve touched on that territory before.
[A public school student has the inalienable right to] WEAR RELIGIOUS GARB ON A PUBLIC SCHOOL CAMPUS, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO CLOTHING WITH A RELIGIOUS MESSAGE;
Now we’re starting to get a little sticky. I’d be in favor of this if it were applied across the board. But would the framers of this bill really feel comfortable with a turban, or a T-shirt that reads “Satan Rules Our Souls!”? Somehow, I doubt it.
[A student may] EXPRESS HIS OR HER RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OR SELECT RELIGIOUS MATERIALS WHEN RESPONDING TO A SCHOOL ASSIGNMENT IF HIS OR HER RESPONSE REASONABLY MEETS THE EDUCATIONAL PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT;
The can of worms cracks open a little wider. If I were a science teacher, and a student gave an answer on a test that the Universe is 6,000 years old, I would have to mark that wrong (because it is). That doesn’t mean that the student can’t write that answer down. What concerns me is the idea that the bill’s authors intended that the student should not be marked down for wrong answers if they’re based on his or her religious beliefs.
Really? What if the kid believes that comets are not chunks of ice orbiting the Sun, but that they’re cloaking devices for alien ships? What if he believes that the Earth is hollow and that there are enormous holes at the poles, where one may enter and see the flora and fauna living within, illuminated by the Earth’s internal sun? What if he believes that the Earth is stationary?
People have believed all of these things in recent times; they were marginal beliefs, but the bill makes no provision for numbers of people who believe something. These ideas are false. They should be marked as such. If there is no such thing as a right or a wrong answer, what purpose does education serve?
[A teacher shall] NOT BE REQUIRED TO TEACH A TOPIC THAT VIOLATES HIS OR HER RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AND NOT BE DISCIPLINED FOR REFUSING TO TEACH THE TOPIC;
And this where I absolutely have to draw a line. Some religions teach that white people are superior and members of other races are inferior, or that women are inferior to men. Should a white man with certain religious beliefs be permitted to omit teaching about women’s suffrage or slave emancipation in his American History course simply because he has those beliefs? What if he teaches that these things are wrong because of his beliefs?
Evolution is the best theory we have to explain the biological diversity we see; biology teachers shouldn’t be permitted to just leave it out or teach Intelligent Design instead. As a teacher, you’re permitted to have religious beliefs, but you’re not permitted to teach those beliefs as true simply because you have them. If you are a teacher and you omit certain required parts of the curriculum — or, worse, you teach your religious beliefs instead of the curriculum — you rightfully ought to be disciplined.
More pernicious than all of this is the sneaking suspicion that this bill isn’t about protecting all religious folk; it’s about protecting a specific group. One could easily come up with religious groups or beliefs that would make this bill ridiculous to enforce. Even if my suspicions are wrong, moving this bill through the legislature is a waste of taxpayer time and revenue.
O Nata Lux: Rule 34 always applies Matt.
Yeah — I guess that’s the nature of Rule 34, isn’t it?
Irene: You can twist the truth so you believe it, but please don’t take people for fools and try to convince others that you’ve just argued that we weren’t founded on the Christian faith.
“Twist the truth”? I gave quotes from people who were intimately involved in the founding of the country to reveal their thoughts about how faith relates to the philosophies used to found the nation. I gave indications that there are certain crucial ideas to Christianity that appear nowhere in the documents that form the basis of the government of the United States.
It is not the case that “a lot of the founders of the United States were Christian” means that “the United States was founded on the Chrsitian faith”.
It is not the case that “a lot of the founders of the United States used Christian imagery” means that “the United States was founded on the Christian faith”.
It is not the case that “a lot of government documents within the United States refer to God” means that “the United States was founded on the Christian faith”.
It is not the case that “a lot of the art generated by Americans, even that which refers to our nation and meant to be patriotic, refers to God” means that “the United States was founded on the Christian faith”.
It is not the case that “a lot of traditional American practices are Christian” means that “the United States was founded on the Christian faith”.
First of all, to make a statement like “the United States was founded on the Christian faith” is to set the bar of proof quite high. Christianity preaches a lot of very specific things, and one needs proof that these specific things exist in the things used to establish the governments of the United States to show that they are integrated into the way this country was founded. Not only are these proofs lacking, often exactly the opposite is true — one can see the authors taking great pains to remove specific religious references from these things. (Mentioning God, by the by, is not in and of itself Christian.)
Irene: Shame on you for being a part of the population that wants to remove God from our country.
I have no desire to see God removed from our country. I would like to see Christians disentangle themselves from politicking that threatens to debase and degrade the name of Christ by tying it to documents and philosophies that do not specifically include Him as He has revealed Himself.
I would like to see it become an ineffective tactic to use the name of Christ to get people to believe that certain political movements or ideas are “Christian”, especially when they don’t even attempt to glorify — or even mention! — Christ Himself. But that does not mean, in any sense, that I would like to see Him removed from the country.
Irene: Personally, I beg Him every day not to remove his hand of protection and provision from us. If you had a lick of sense in that head of yours, you would too.
It might surprise you to know that I do. But I do not confuse the principles of following Christ with the ideologies that founded our country.
Irene: Go to an atheist web site and annoy them, would ya?
A wonderful Christian response to difficult ideas: “Go away”.
I’m trying to inject some truth into this discussion and remind Christ’s people that we are more than mere political influence, more than ideas used to found a nation that don’t even mention Christ, more than a voting block, more than a set of traditions of any sort — historical, political, or religious. Why do you object to this? If you can show me wrong, please do; but as I’ve mentioned, the bar is quite high.
Paul: It is obvious by reading the original treaty that Tripoli considered America to be a Christian nation.
Yes, that was their concern. It was exactly why it was thought necessary to allay those fears by mentioning the lack of specific religious ideologies in the founding of the nation. Otherwise, mentioning it at all would be unnecessary, wouldn’t it?
Paul (quoting Wheelan): It matched an ostensibly Christian nation against an avowed Islamic one that professed to despise Christians.
“Ostensibly” has definitions in the Random House Unabridged Dictionary of “outwardly appearing as such; professed; pretended”. It often carries the connotation of hypocritical action. With that in mind, it’s interesting that you chose this quote to bolster your statements.
Paul (quoting Wheelan): Except for its Native American population and a small percentage of Jews, the United States was solidly Christian, while the North African regencies were just as solidly Muslim-openly hostile toward Christians.
“Most of the people were Christian at the time of the nation’s founding” does not mean even nearly the same thing as “the nation was founded on the Christian faith”.
Paul (quoting John Adams): It is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue.
“Religion” is not the same as “Christianity”. Even ignoring the straightforward logical truth of that statement, I hear it from Christians all the time.
Nor, to address the reset of the quote, is Christianity the only religion that imposes a moral code upon its people.
Paul (quoting John Q. Adams): The law given from Sinai was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code; it contained many statutes . . . of universal application-laws essential to the existence of men in society, and most of which have been enacted by every nation which ever professed any code of laws.
This is true. However, it is not even nearly the same as saying that these nations were founded on the Christian faith.
Paul (quoting John Q. Adams): There are three points of doctrine the belief of which forms the foundation of all morality. The first is the existence of God; the second is the immortality of the human soul; and the third is a future state of rewards and punishments. Suppose it possible for a man to disbelieve either of these three articles of faith and that man will have no conscience, he will have no other law than that of the tiger or the shark. The laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy.
Those three points are included in Christianity, but they are included in many other faiths as well. It’s also a long way from “these ideas are good for the functioning of society” to “this particular society was founded on a specific faith that carries these ideas and many others”.
Let’s posit a society that is not founded on Christianity — or any particular faith — but whose people nevertheless embrace Christ in large numbers. They would agree with John Q. Adams’ point that certain Christian philosophical ideals help society run smoothly and help its people live more virtuous lives, but lying to themselves about the ideas written down that codify their government would require debasing the high ideals of their faith and making them in some way related to the destiny of their nation. This is what I believe is happening to a large percentage of Christianity as it is practiced in the United States.
I know that many influential people in the history of the U.S. have espoused Christian ideas. I happen to agree with a good many of them. But that’s very different from saying that the country was founded on the Christian faith. Recognizing that the Christian faith works to keep society — even our society — running smoothly is different from saying that it forms the basis of our founding documents and government. Do you see?
Paul (quoting Samuel Adams): Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.
[sarcasm] Ah, yes. Christianity is certainly the only faith to promote a good lifestyle and good manners. Clearly, I was mistaken. [/sarcasm]
It’s a shame that so many Christians set their bar so low when it comes to describing what components are key to the faith and why they’re important.
Paul (quoting Thomas Jefferson): The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of mankind.
Yes. I agree wholeheartedly. But that’s different from saying “The concept of Jesus as Lord of all is written into the very founding documents of the nation”. That said, I think this might come the closest of any of your many examples to providing what I asked for.
Paul (quoting James McHenry): Public utility pleads most forcibly for the general distribution of the Holy Scriptures.
Yes! Spread the Word of God around! Preach its truth convincingly, loudly, and often! Any people who disregard the Bible will find their society crumbling! But where is the idea that the Bible was used as a founding document of the government of the United States?
“The Bible is important for a society to function and even exist” is very different from “this society was founded on the Christian faith”.
Paul (quoting the Pennsylvania Supreme Court): No free government now exists in the world, unless where Christianity is acknowledged, and is the religion of the country.
“Christianity must be acknowledged for a society to be free” is different from “our society was founded on Christianity”. Acknowledgement of something is not the same as using it as a foundation.
“Christianity is the religion of the country” is different from “the country is founded on Christianity”.
Paul: Did you know that even the president called for prayer and fasting: By the President of the United States of America
Again, you seem to confuse the action of government officials and/or philosophies espoused by them with the documents and philosophies that form the foundation of the United States.
I seem to be having difficulty communicating my stance. I am not trying to say that people in the United States should just stop acting Christian. I am not trying to say that the government should not act Christian; I’ve said several times already that I wish there were some clear way to distinguish between advocating faith and celebrating it so that its celebration would not be hindered. I am not trying to say that there is no historical mention of the Bible, or Christ, or Christianity, or that statesmen who mentioned it were off-base in relating its importance to the well-being of society generally.
I am trying to assert that the high ideals and beliefs of Christianity are not to be found in the philosophies or documents that dictate how the government of the United States operates, and that it is a mistake to put them there. I am trying to assert that even if the founding fathers of the United States arguably used certain ideas from their faith to codify the nation, that is very different from founding the nation on that faith.
It might help if you were to spend less time attempting to surmise what I do or don’t know and more addressing what I’m trying to say. Your quotes show the powerful faith of many individuals influential in our nation’s history in stark relief, and they communicate great truth about the power and necessity of the Christian faith to any people and even our own — but they do not address my point about how the country was founded.
Let me see if I can make it more clear with a little brevity. Many public officials with influence in the creation of the United States government have made statements that amount to, “Our population embracing Christian values is essential for the well-being of our nation”. I agree. However, that is not the same as founding the nation or its system of government upon Christianity.
The difference is important, but blurring the distinction has been a key method used to gain support for a form of politics that tries to leverage the natural Christian empathy for others and desire to spread the gospel into a drive for certain political causes and ideals. We Christians should not be manipulated by the world’s systems attempting to use our votes and finances for their gain, or mistake a drive to create a certain culture with a drive to introduce God’s Son to people. Our perspective is far broader than any earthly culture or political expression; our mission is much more compelling.
Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves. — Jesus Christ, Matthew 10:16
Paul, if you can find the time and energy to make such large posts like #10 and #11 then why won’t you answer and debate with us on science and nature within the show site titled “Should Intelligent Design Be Tought In Schools?”?
We would still like to hear from both you AND Irene on these topics.
Later[smile].
Update on the Colorado thing: the religious bill of rights has been “indefinitely postponed”.
This is a common way of essentially killing a motion. What’s interesting to me is that the votes were strictly along party lines — the Democrats all voted to kill it, and the Republicans all voted not to kill it. Shocking, I know, but what interests me is that in spite of this, many Christians will continue to insist that their stance on issues like these has nothing to do with politics.
Imagine just for a moment that the way a lot of Christians imagine our ideal government to be — one founded on the Christian faith — were actually implemented in the name of “free speech” or expressing the history of the nation or what-have-you. Prayer in the schools, led by teachers every morning; Christian doctrine espoused as a reason to adopt laws or to reject them; specifically Christian morality enforced by law; committees determining based on Christian doctrine what can be broadcast, or printed, or released as a movie or on the Internet. (Assuming we could even find a form of Christian morality that all the Christians would be happy with, I mean.)
This represents a staggering amount of power in the hands of the government over the religious practices of its people. I mention this because people and societies change; if the whims of the people should ever drift in another religious direction, or even sway from the truth a little bit, the precedent set by allowing policies like those above would allow these different religious beliefs to permeate society to a degree difficult to fully comprehend.
I’m also sure that there are politicians who understand the depth of a power grab that would allow things like this and would seek to exploit it, even if they currently disagree with the Christians who voted for them to try to move things in Christianity’s direction. It’s easy to see that they only need to give the Christians what they want for now in order to maintain their constituency; and if and when the power becomes available, they can use it for whatever ends they see fit.
It seems only natural that we would thank God that the nation was not founded on the Christian faith! It could well — and probably would — lead to a terrible perversion of the faith, leading the hearts and minds of those disinclined to examine the matter along with it. It would make trying to teach the truth that much harder — not just because of the cultural inertia, but because so many wouldn’t see the point. (Interesting datum: Find out how many Brits claim to be part of the Church of England. Then, try to determine — even with something as mundane as regular church attendance — how many likely believe in the dogma of the church of their culture.)
We live in a land where we are free to share the gospel — the gospel as it is, not as any historian tells us our culture is like, not as any leading political party would have us think and believe and vote — and as long as we don’t delude ourselves into thinking that the government should be able to promote certain religious beliefs (or stifle others), it will stay that way. People are free from a religion handed down to them by the culture and the government, and it seems reasonable that this freedom would remove another series of potential blinders from the eyes of those who need to see Christ quite apart from the culture and the government.
I do not mean to say in any sense that I want Christianity removed from the culture. Far from it! I pray for the souls of the lost every day. But I don’t relish the thought of waiting for a government granted broad religious influence to sway in a strange direction — even assuming the improbable idea that we could get it to embrace the truth of Christianity in the first place.
Paul, I feel an obligation to point out some of your mistakes.
You really need to research your material a little better before you present it when arguing against someone else, especially while claiming to have a better understanding of history. For example, two of the people you quoted as supporting Christianity in America, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams seem to have made a number of quotes concerning religion and various Christian denominations in a less than flattering way.If you would like some examples, just check out the websites titled “Thomas Jefferson: Unbeliever”, or “Positive Atheism’s Big List of John Adams Quotations”. Benjamin Franklin has also made some quotes that some of the more devout would probably find…questionable.
Did you know of all of this? People who work in politics seem to live in a world of compromise and hypocrisy. They tell the common man what they think we would want to hear from people in their positions of power, perhaps in the hopes that we will either shut up and go away, or strive to help them maintain positions of power in society. Thus, how can any of them be fully trusted by the common man? This is what one needs to bear in mind when quote hunting or putting up names or influence for support with a debate. Check for more consistency within a persons character and actions[in public as well as in privet]in the future, and you wont have to ever worry about looking foolish[or at least throw in some lines like "I may be wrong, but I think Thomas Jefferson supported what I'm saying because HE said..." See? those words 'I may be wrong,.." and "..I think.." provide you with an out, absolving you're actions of accountability is information contrary to your point is discovered and revealed.]in public again.
Matt: “We Christians should not be manipulated by the world’s systems attempting to use our votes and finances for their gain, or mistake a drive to create a certain culture with a drive to introduce God’s Son to people. Our perspective is far broader than any earthly culture or political expression; our mission is much more compelling.” This is why you’ll never understand much, you think you do, and you try to reason things out but you always miss the mark. And why is that? because you don’t have a passion for God and an understanding of the Word of God. I know you’ll disagree and try to make your point by your reasoning ability, but until God really gets a hold of your heart you’ll never have that passion or understanding of much of anything in life. The thing is you can’t manufacture this in your life, it’s either real or it’s not. And believe me people can spot the real thing. Who is The absolute Truth? Christ. And where are all the real answers in life found? In the Word of God.
Matt: Remember awhile ago I talked about God’s authority in all areas of life, God establishes civil authorities, church authority, and family authority. Well I know you couldn’t grasp that because of your lack of understanding of the Word of God, and you demonstrate this by saying that we shouldn’t create a certain culture, and we should not be manipulated by the world’s systems, as if God is to be placed in a box just for spiritual matters only. Did you know that the pharisees and the herodians believed such things and Jesus set them strait.
Isaiah 9:6
For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder. We notice the word government here (meaning total sovereignty over). what is government? When this question is asked, most people respond by equating government solely to a centralized civil State. Even our language reflects the confusion: “Government? It’s in Washington,” or “The government will take care of its citizens through its many programs.” Both of these statements reflect a misunderstanding of the true nature of government. They portray the idea that the only governing institution is a political one. Historically, however, the term “government” was always qualified in some way, unlike our present-day definitions.
Our educational system reflects the same confusion. A generation ago, high school classes dealing with state government were given the title “Civics.” The emphasis was on the function of government in civil matters. This is no longer the case. Before World War I, textbooks dealing with national government were qualified with the title “Civil.” An example of this can be seen in a textbook used in 1903: Elements of Civil Government. According to its author, “The family… Is a form of government, established for the good of children themselves, and the first government that each of us must obey.”
The book continues by defining five areas of civil government: “the township or civil district, the village or the city, the county, the State, and the United States.” The term “government” as the older educational definition indicates, is broader than the State. Textbook writers were aware that there were personal (self), family, church, school, and civil governments, each having a legitimate realm of authority. Civil government was seen as only one government among many.
To deny the validity of the many governments and the responsibilities that each has under God, would be to deny the authority that belongs to each of them in the realm of their activity. If we as individuals neglect our personal governing duties, then we can expect the state to assume the role of all other legitimate governments and claim to be the sole government, while labeling all others as counterfeits. Therefore, to see the state as the only governing institution “is destructive of liberty and of life.”
The concept of the multiplicity of governments was as old as our country, because the principles were extracted from biblical principles. Noah Webster’s definition of government in his American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) reflects the biblical concept of the diversity of governmental authority. Webster defined government in this way: “Direction; regulation. ‘These precepts will serve for the government of our conduct.’ Control; restraint. ‘Men are apt to neglect the government of their temper and passions.’”
While Noah Webster defined government in terms of personal self-control, most modern definitions largely limit government to the realm of institutions, especially civil or statist governments. This is made evident by the fact that the definition for civil government is placed first in modern dictionaries. Nowhere are self- and family governments even listed. For example, Webster’s New World Dictionary (1972) defines government as “The exercise of authority over a state, district, organization, institution, etc.”
Noah Webster, in the older definition, even goes on to include family government as part of the complete definition before he deals with the government of an individual civil government at the state or national level. He defines family government as: “The exercise of authority by a parent or householder. ‘Children are often ruined by a neglect of government in parents.’” According to the Bible, it is the duty of parents to govern in the home: “And fathers, do not provoke your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). It is not the duty of a civil government to interfere with the affairs of the family. Too often, however, parents neglect their God-given duty to raise their children in the “nurture and admonition of the Lord.” When this happens, we can expect the State to take an increasingly dominant role in family affairs. Such a role is to the detriment of the family. The State on many occasions has even claimed ownership of children.
If generations continue to be indoctrinated with the modern definition of “government,” they will neglect their own personal, family, church, and local governing duties. They will believe that these responsibilities are outside their area of authority and jurisdiction. Each generation will become more dependent on the “benevolent” State for care and security. We are beginning to see such a trend. “Today, most Americans have lost their faith in Christ as Savior, and they expect civil government to be their savior. They have no desire for the responsibilities of self-government, and so they say to politicians, ‘Do thou rule over us.’ Instead of Jesus Christ as their good shepherd, they elect politicians to be their shepherds on a program of socialistic security for all.”
Government begins with the individual and extends outward to include all institutions. Presently, however, most Americans are unaware of the varied nature of government. The civil sphere of government has assumed responsibility to be the government. It is sad that many Americans are thankful that Washington has relieved them from what they believe is the heavy burden of governing themselves, their families, churches, and schools. If the people of the United States do not once again establish self-, family, church, local, state, and national governments and limit them in power and authority, our nation is doomed.
Conde Pallen’s “utopian” novel Crucible Island depicts what happens when the God of the Bible is rejected and the State becomes God. Man looks for a substitute provider so “the individual should have no thought, desire, or object other than the public welfare, of which the State is the creator and the inviolable guardian. As soon as the child is capable of learning, he is taught the Socialist catechism, whose first questions run as follows”:
Q. By whom were you begotten?
A. By the sovereign State.
Q. Why were you begotten?
A. That I might know, love, and serve the Sovereign State always.
Q. What is the sovereign State?
A. The sovereign State is humanity in composite and perfect being.
Q. Why is the State supreme?
A. The State is supreme because it is my Creator and Conserver in which I am and move and have my being and without which I am nothing.
Q. What is the individual?
A. The individual is only a part of the whole, and made for the whole, and finds his complete and perfect expression in the sovereign State. Individuals are made for cooperation only, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth.
The central focus of all realms of government is the regenerating work of Jesus Christ. Institutions and civil governments are made up of people who are governed by the condition of their hearts. If the heart is in rebellion against God, we can expect undisciplined and ungovernable people. If the heart has been made new in Christ, we can expect a people who will govern their lives according to the governing principles of Scripture. A. A. Hodge speaks of the essence of the new heart, regen-eration, as consisting of “the implantation of a new governing principle of life-from the fact that it is a ‘new birth’ [John 3:3], a ‘new creation’ [2 Cor. 5:17], wrought by the mighty power of God in execution of his eternal purpose of salvation, and that it is as necessary for the most moral and amiable as for the morally abandoned.”
It’s really quite simple. All you have to do is see whether the founding documents of the United States establish — or even affirm — the same truth that Christianity does. If so, the statement that “the government of the United States was founded on the Christian faith” might have some merit. If the foundation of the government contradict the doctrine of Christianity, one should rightfully question the statement.
Compare the Bill of Rights to the Ten Commandments, for example. They contradict one another. In light of this test and a host of other simple ones, how can one seriously claim that the government of the U.S. has its basis in Christianity?
Paul: This is why you’ll never understand much, you think you do, and you try to reason things out but you always miss the mark. And why is that? because you don’t have a passion for God and an understanding of the Word of God. I know you’ll disagree and try to make your point by your reasoning ability, but until God really gets a hold of your heart you’ll never have that passion or understanding of much of anything in life.
Reason, especially as applied to the Word of God, is how I attempt to find right and wrong. How I feel about it — what’s going on in my heart — provides motivation to understand, but is itself a rather poor indicator of understanding. Based on what Scripture has to say about such things, I would advise you not to consider your “passion” or your “heart” your primary source of divining truth. [cf. Jeremiah 17:9]
I also find it interesting that you presume to dictate to me where my passions lie. That pesky ninth commandment becomes optional again, eh?
Paul: Who is The absolute Truth? Christ. And where are all the real answers in life found? In the Word of God.
I have never contested either of these statements.
Paul: Remember awhile ago I talked about God’s authority in all areas of life, God establishes civil authorities, church authority, and family authority.
I happen to believe this, too. But “God established this authority” is not the same thing as “this authority was founded upon the Christian faith”. God establishes all authorities, but it should be patently obvious that not all authorities are based on Christianity!
Paul: Well I know you couldn’t grasp that because of your lack of understanding of the Word of God, and you demonstrate this by saying that we shouldn’t create a certain culture, and we should not be manipulated by the world’s systems, as if God is to be placed in a box just for spiritual matters only.
On the contrary: I want to see faith in Christ and Christianity removed from being a mere cultural icon or backdrop. I want to see faith in Christ and Christianity freed from a means to form or utilize political control, or a means to garner votes through appeals to populism.
I want Christianity free to act in all areas of people’s lives, and not have it swayed by the culture or politics. I want faith in Christ freed from the box of politics and history that revisionists are trying to put it into so that they can justify broad, sweeping control under the name of some kind of national destiny or heritage.
The desire to follow Christ comes from the heart, not the culture, and it cannot be manufactured by the culture or enforced by the culture. Christ works in the spirits of men, not in the traditions of men. [cf. Colossians 2:8]
Paul: To deny the validity of the many governments and the responsibilities that each has under God, would be to deny the authority that belongs to each of them in the realm of their activity.
I do not deny that government is responsible to God. I deny that the government was founded on the Christian faith.
This should not be surprising. The lives of all individuals were created by God, for example, and all individuals (and their lives) are responsible to God, but this does not mean that all individuals base their lives on the Christian faith.
Paul: If generations continue to be indoctrinated with the modern definition of “government,” they will neglect their own personal, family, church, and local governing duties. They will believe that these responsibilities are outside their area of authority and jurisdiction. Each generation will become more dependent on the “benevolent” State for care and security.
These are interesting arguments, but what do they have to do with whether or not the government was founded on the Christian faith?
I am not asking Christians to abdicate their responsibility in reaching out into the world or impacting the culture or government for Christ. But it is a mistake to assert that our government was founded on the Christian faith. Such a stance would only misdirect our efforts.
I am also not asking anyone to put their trust in the government, or to place responsibility on the government that they should assume.
Paul: Conde Pallen’s “utopian” novel Crucible Island depicts what happens when the God of the Bible is rejected and the State becomes God.
Large numbers of people could accept or reject the Bible, and neither dramatic circumstance would change whether or not the government was founded on the Christian faith. Large numbers of people could live moral lives or not, but this would not change whether or not the government was founded on the Christian faith. Large numbers of people could refuse to depend on the State in ways that they should not, but this would not change whether or not the government was founded on the Christian faith. The fact that our government was not founded on the Christian faith does not mean that people’s hearts should not be devoted to God.
Christian faith can and should have an influence on the way our people conduct politics, but it should not be assumed that our political system was based on the Christian faith.
Noting that the system of government we have was not founded on the Christian faith does no constitute rejection of God; it constitutes rejection of one (easily falsifiable) model of the philosophies that went into the formation our government’s structure.
I passionately desire to see people come to know and love Christ; if they genuinely love Him and seek to walk in His ways, and this creates a moral society, so much the better. But even if this were to come true, none of it would imply that our government was established on the Christian faith.
Paul post 20,
And who are YOU to judge how much “passion” MattF has as a Christian? Who are YOU to fully assess the degree of intimacy within the relationship between him and God? Do you think that you know so well what is within the hearts and minds of those who disagree with you on some topics?
A difficult thing to believe indeed, when one reflects on how rarely you even engage him[or others]in debate, or ask questions to try and learn more about what other posters mean by their comments.
post 21,
So what exactly do you want, for America to be a Theocracy?
If so, then do you not have any knowledge of the European Dark Ages? Or the Taliban?
Post 22,
I see all of these very same words within the “The American Vision- Exercising Servanthood Dominion” website.
I cannot help but wonder…how often do you ever have and exercise original thoughts and responses? Are you just not good at expressing yourself as an actual individual? Is this the reason you don’t post more often or debate with us on the topic of science/nature….because you cannot find the right words within your favored websites[or books]to respond with or engage a conversation?
Matt: you are the perfect example of a person who doesn’t think critically. You say “Compare the Bill of Rights to the Ten Commandments, for example. They contradict one another.” And I say DO YOU KNOW HOW TO THINK. You example is ridiculous. But I understand why you can’t seem to make the connection, because you’ve never been taught how to think critically. You’ve been taught what to think and not how to think. So talking to you is pointless, what more is you don’t even want to understand and that is sad.
And Paul continues to plagiarize Gary DeMar word for word as if it is his own original thought. It is comforting to know that some things never change.
Great discussion! Don, Bill Federer and Allan Sears have written prolifically on the ‘Origins of the ACLU’ founded by avowed communist Roger Baldwin–very fascinating history.
by way of explanation:
As far as the Prayer at the commissioners’ meetings—it’s not the Gov’t officials praying, it’s Clergy of ALL faith groups that are invited to pray before the meeting begins. The ACLU wants to censor this because a lot of these ’secterian’ prayers are in Jesus name and a couple people claim to be offended.
the whole case is documented at http://www.letusallpray.org
So Is this Establishing a Church or freedom of Expression?
Matt, further up on this chain of posts I said some things that I must apologize for. I am supposed to be different and I wasn’t. I am sorry. It wasn’t right for me to go off on a rant at you. It was totally unacceptable.
It is good to hear from you again Kash[smile].
Are you moved and settled yet? Are you happy within your new denomination? Did you win that marathon???
It is good to hear back from you too, Irene Abbott.
And you as well, Stu[smile]. You should join in more often. I bet your participation could bring an interesting new dimension to our debates.
Paul: Matt: you are the perfect example of a person who doesn’t think critically. You say “Compare the Bill of Rights to the Ten Commandments, for example. They contradict one another.”
Yes. Because I think the topic points out exactly what’s at root here. But you need to think a little deeply and a little critically.
(It’s difficult to be perfectly precise when discussing this, since exactly which passage constitutes “the Ten Commandments” has actually not been the object of unanimous agreement among Christians, or between Christians and Jews. In my enumerations, I’m going with Exodus 20:2-17, as enumerated by most Christian denominations whose formations post-date Lutheranism’s origin. Nevertheless, I think one can see that my points stand regardless of exactly where the Ten Commandments lie and how they should be numbered.)
Quick and dirty summary: the First Amendment protects freedom of speech and religion. The first four commandments explicitly curtail religious expression and speech to specific forms.
In other words, the document that lies at the very foundation of the establishment of the government of the United States prevents Congress from making certain laws that are consistent with — or even copies of — laws in the Bible. How can one then claim that the government was established on the Christian faith?
God’s concept of punishing children for the sins of their parents in the second commandment (“I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me…”) is contrary to the American sense of justice as outlined in the Fifth Amendment, specifying exactly how and under what circumstances a person can be punished by the legal system. This seems to me to be less of an outright contradiction of law and more of a contradiction in purpose, though.
One could draw other examples that seem to me to be somewhat more tenuous.
Paul: And I say DO YOU KNOW HOW TO THINK. You example is ridiculous.
You might argue that it’s ridiculous because I’m attempting to compare two texts that weren’t meant to be compared. But that’s exactly my point, and thank you for making it for me. The Bible had nothing to do with the foundation of our government. You can find Biblical passages and mangle them to appear to fit American law, but I can easily find passages that contradict American law, even in its basic principles. There are also broad areas of perfectly good and just laws that the Ten Commandments do not even address (e.g., it’s a crime to beat someone senseless because they look funny; or because they disagree with you on political matters; or for most reasons, really).
Even exactly how the Ten Commandments ought to be understood is the subject of debate within Christendom, as people try to determine which situations apply and which don’t. For example, it’s clear to most (but, strangely, not all) that parents who abuse their children deserve prison, not honor; it would seem that honoring parents is only applicable under certain circumstances. Some think that the injunction against killing still permits lethal self-defense; others take a more pacifist approach, and say that it prohibits taking life even when under immediate threat of death. Some get around the entire issue by asserting that the sixth commandment refers to murder, not killing; but is it murder to kill someone to take their land? Is it murder to kill someone who is homosexual for acting out his or her proclivities? Is it murder to kill a child for disrespecting his parents? Is it murder to kill unborn children, or is it only murder if they’re not the unborn children of your enemy? Is war murder? Is capital punishment murder? Regardless of your opinions on these matters, it’s clear that we need to dig a lot deeper than this commandment alone in order to develop a rich theory of when murder occurs and what constitutes justice.
Is it stealing to take a weapon from someone likely to abuse it? Is it stealing to take food from someone who doesn’t need it when you’re starving? Does the commandment to honor your parents justify racism and/or segregation? If we are supposed to treat the Sabbath as holy, which professional sports should be considered especially (or even just sufficiently) holy? Which day is the Sabbath? Christians have taken all sorts of stances on these ideas throughout history — and, it pains me to say, not always noble ones.
It’s interesting in light of this to observe that Christians for the most part reject situational ethics, sometimes even pointing to the Ten Commandments as proof of inviolable and absolute standards, when it is those very commandments that are the source of much situational debate within Christianity itself. I tend to think that many Christians who argue this way are on the right track, but don’t think very carefully about how law relates to morals. Regardless, that’s a topic for another discussion.
The point is that if the U.S. government had indeed been founded on the Christian faith, one would be able to take the Bible’s principles and, at the very least, start correlating them directly to the basis of American law; one would also expect that if a law in the Bible were not specifically enumerated in the law of the United States, enough latitude would exist to add it, at least at the foundations before people got all kinds of twisted ideas about what should be laws and what shouldn’t. One might even hope to find reference to specifically Christian doctrine in the records pertaining to the formation of the government. Instead, when one examines the most foundational documents on which the government is based, one finds contradictions with Scripture. There are laws in the most fundamental establishing documents of the government which prevent the addition of some of the laws that are foundational to Christianity.
This, as I think I have made plain, is as I believe it should be on this side of eternity, when followers of Christ are charged with spreading the gospel. Christianity is a matter of following Christ, something which the general population is apathetic about at best and inimical to at worst. Christ calls His followers to high standards [cf. Luke 9:23, 14:26; Matthew 5-7] which many would be loath to follow; even dedicated followers find them difficult(*). Some passages might even be interpreted to say that those who do not follow Christ would not even understand what following Christ is all about [cf. 1 Corinthians 2:14]; attempting to get a large group of people to follow a social order that a very large percentage cannot hope to understand seems a guaranteed recipe for disaster. Moreover, if Christianity is made the basis of government, it will end up perverting the people, Christianity, or (most likely) both, as different parties bicker and compromise to maintain their influence; given the fallen nature of man and his governments, the name of Christ cannot help but suffer for it.
I find it appalling that the inevitablility of this kind of damage to the name of Christ is an acceptable price to so many who would like to see lip service, special treatment, and special consideration for our beliefs and convictions from people in power. Regardless of whether you cite cultural influence or historical trends or any other reason for wanting this kind of recognition or thinking that it is justified, how much more clear could it be that desiring this kind of prescribed acknowledgement from our government and/or society is seeking the approval of men? Why do we seek such transient things when we should be a people with eternal hope and a far broader perspective [cf. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18; Colossians 3:22-24; Romans 14:10-12; Galatians 1:10]?
stu: As far as the Prayer at the commissioners’ meetings—it’s not the Gov’t officials praying, it’s Clergy of ALL faith groups that are invited to pray before the meeting begins.
A meeting of what, stu?
stu: The ACLU wants to censor this because a lot of these ’secterian’ prayers are in Jesus name and a couple people claim to be offended.
Again, I don’t think they’re trying to jump in because people were offended. I think they’re trying to jump in because, at a government meeting, some faiths will be represented and others not — and that may make it seem like the government is endorsing some faiths and not others, since they’re allowed to participate in (and be honored by inclusion with) the government’s business.
Again, not that I agree. But I see the point. I wish I knew a good way to resolve the conflict.
stu: So Is this Establishing a Church or freedom of Expression?
Your either/or dichotomy is false. Is this about college basketball or about manufacturing pixie dust?
Seriously, though, it doesn’t seem to be about either establishing a church or about freedom of expression. Trying to drag in those as arguments seems to be missing the point entirely.
Irene Abbot: I am sorry.
No worries. Often, the line between discussion of beliefs and attacking them can be a thin one.
(*) Gilbert K. Chesterton, whose The Everlasting Man contributed to the conversion to Christianity of C. S. Lewis: Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.
(I’m also found of this one from him: The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.
And when he was invited by the Times to write an essay on the theme “What’s Wrong with the World?”, he replied, Dear Sirs, I am. Sincerely yours, G. K. Chesterton.)
Perhaps, again, an attempt to condense will clarify what I mean.
The Ten Commandments are often cited as a moral basis that indicates the kind of Christian one ought to be. Tell me, if you would, what kind of pick-and-choose Christianity it is that you practice, such that you can look at a document that fundamentally defines a political structure and that forever prohibits this basis from becoming the law of the land in any way, and claim, apparently without irony, “Yup — that government is established on the Christian faith.”
How much of the basis of Christianity can a system block from ever being incorporated into it, and still have people claim that that system is based on Christianity? None? Some? All? If some, how much, which parts, and why?
In other words, explain to me why one’s reaction shouldn’t be as yours was, essentially: “Compare the Ten Commandments to the Bill of Rights? That’s absurd.” If the government is truly established on the Christian faith, then one ought to be able to show compatibility or consistency, even if it happens that there are no useful traits of the two things we’re comparing that can usefully be considered side-by-side. There should not be outright contradiction, which seems to be the case.
Paul: And I say DO YOU KNOW HOW TO THINK. You example is ridiculous.
Settle down; no need to yell. You know what a better way to handle unusual or apparently nonsensical ideas is?
“That’s clear out of left field. I have no idea what he’s talking about. Still, he brought it up, so in some way, it makes sense to him. I’d better find out what his reasoning is. If it’s as shaky as I suspect, I can easily point out the errors in his logic.”
You can’t hold people accountable to your deductions from your caricature of their position. If you don’t know why a person makes a certain claim, chances are good that you don’t understand what they’re thinking. True, what’s going on in their head might be completely bonkers, but chances are that they probably think they’re helping things or making reasonable conclusions. If it happens that they’re mistaken and they’re not really all that reasonable, let them explain themselves, and they’ll show rather starkly just how terrible their logic really is.
Paul: You’ve been taught what to think and not how to think.
… says the person whose posts, in the main, consist of long swaths of copy-and-paste diatribes written by someone else.
Paul: So talking to you is pointless
Yeah, good. Run away, and do your best to make it look like you aren’t the one with the closed mind. Spin things so that people will think that you’re not the one who realizes that his ideas don’t make sense and that he’d better get out while the getting’s good.
I have far more respect for the intelligence of the people on this forum than that.
MattF: A meeting of what, stu?
Let me clarify what I mean here, since I seem to be having trouble making my point. Someone watching the proceedings of government will gain a sort of pragmatic understanding about what the government thinks works and what it thinks doesn’t work; simply, the ways that it tries to do business must be ways that it thinks is the proper way to do business, and the ways that it doesn’t do business — even if those ways are perfectly available to them — must be ways that it thinks don’t work, or don’t work as well.
Our hypothetical spectator notes that this commissioners’ meeting begins with prayer. More to the point, he notices that it begins with supplicating Jesus. In his mind, then, the government must think that supplicating Jesus is how to do good government. Conversely, other faiths that were not exercised must be ways which the government thinks useless or detrimental.
I think that’s the issue at hand. It’s not whether or not someone’s offended; that may be true, and it may be used to sway the judgment of a sentimental jury, but it’s kind of incidental. It’s a question of whether the government appears to be endorsing particular faiths — and whether it appears to be rejecting others.
Do I agree with this line of reasoning? Well, no. At a fundamental level, of course, the way the government does things is often not the best way to do things in the minds of the people, so I guess that’s not unusual. Nevertheless, I understand the argument, and think we ought to be addressing it (rather than jumping off into irrelevant territory) if we want to make any headway in a debate with the ACLU.
The Left Wing and Right Wing Enlightenments by Gary DeMar
Brooke Allen claims in her article “Our Godless Constitution” that America “was founded not on Christian principles but on Enlightenment ones.” The Enlightenment is a term used to describe a period in eighteenth-century Europe and America when reason, coupled with advances in science, was declared to be the principal source of intellectual and moral authority. Something had to be argued rationally and demonstrated empirically to be true. “Enlightenment thinkers rejected the idea that religion can be a source of truth, and believed instead that the application of reason to the evidences of the senses is the sole source of the truth.” Reason was in, and the Bible was out. Many of these early Enlightenment figures were not atheists; they were deists. Deists believe in God, but they do not believe in divine revelation or that God interacts with His creation. God can only be understood through the right use of reason and the study of nature. “A deist is described by the poet Alexander Pope (16881744) as a ‘Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, but looks through nature up to God.’” They could do this because they believed that God was the Creator. The “Laws of Nature” were the creation of “Nature’s God.”
Almost every modern critic of America’s Christian heritage argues that America was founded by deists on Enlightenment principles. For evidence they refer to Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson and for good measure James Madison, John Adams, and Thomas Paine. Here are two examples of many that could be cited: “Among the Founders who rejected the faith of their Puritan Fathers for the Enlightenment were [Benjamin] Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. . . .” Another historian offers a similar assessment: “The founding fathers were predominately deists: Washington, Madison, Franklin, Jefferson.” But after making this claim, the author states, “Yet none was overly dismissive of traditional religion. Indeed, religious concepts . . . kept creeping into their pronouncements, from the Declaration of Independence to the American Constitution.” C. Gregg Singer tells us why:
A Christian world and life view furnished the basis for this early political thought which guided the American people for nearly two centuries and whose crowning [achievement] lay in the writing of the Constitution of 1787. This Christian theism had so permeated the colonial mind that it continued to guide even those who had come to regard the Gospel with indifference or even hostility. The currents of this orthodoxy were too strong to be easily set aside by those who in their own thinking had come to a different conception of religion and hence government too.
For example, the following words appear on Panel Three of the Jefferson Memorial: “God who gave us life gave us liberty.” Thomas Jefferson then asked, “Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?” This is hardly a deist belief, and to a certain degree, it does not square with an Enlightenment philosophy.
In an address to the military on October 11, 1798, John Adams stated that “[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” In a letter to Thomas Jefferson, Adams wrote the following:
The general Principles, on which the [founding] Fathers Achieved Independence, were the only Principles in which that beautiful Assembly of young Gentlemen could Unite, and these Principles only could be intended by them in their Address, or by me in my Answer. And what were these general Principles? I answer, the general Principles of Christianity, in which all those Sects were united: . . . Now I will avow, that I then believed, and now believe, that those general Principles of Christianity, are as eternal and immutable, as the Existence and Attributes of God; and that those Principles of Liberty, are as unalterable as human Nature and our terrestrial, mundane System.
George Washington warned the American people in his Farewell Address, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensible supports. . . . Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be sustained without religion. . . . Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” Physician Benjamin Rush affirmed Washington’s assessment that religion is the prerequisite for morality, virtue, and liberty: “The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in Religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments. . . . All of Christianity’s doctrines and precepts are calculated to promote the happiness of society, and the safety and well being of civil government.”
One of the problems in answering the Enlightenment charge is that not all Enlightenments are created equal. There were actually two Enlightenment philosophies in the eighteenth century: a Left-Wing Enlightenment and a Right-Wing Enlightenment. The Left-Wing Enlightenment which festered in France about the same time that America was putting its final touches on the Constitution promoted an anti-Christian rival religion that promoted a top-down, centralized social and political philosophy that was sanctioned by the blood Madam Guillotine. The Right-Wing version kept the basic elements of a Christian world and the adoption of a social and political philosophy that promoted a bottom-up, decentralized society that led to the War of Independence, but without the excesses of the French bloodletting that became known as the “Reign of Terror.”
Right-Wing Enlightenment philosophy was tempered by Christianity. The French version had thrown off every vestige of Christianity and declared Reason to be god. This did not happen in America. Right-Wing representative James Madison understood that reason has its limitations and man’s nature is often governed by passion:
As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves.
Rushdoony writes that Madison “denied the Enlightenment faith in the objectivity of reason, which, in Christian terms, he saw as inalienably tied to self-love. Man’s reasoning is thus not objective reasoning; it is personal reasoning and will be thus governed by ‘the nature of man’ rather than an abstract concept of rationality.”
Today’s Enlightenment figures, many of whom go by the moniker “Brights,” have made reason an absolute. Man’s nature is not the problem; it’s man’s claim that there is something more than nature. They are Nothing Butters. Of course, the Nothing Butters can’t tell us what really matters. Like Enlightenment figures of centuries ago, the Nothing Butters must borrow from a Christian worldview to make sense of the world.
It’s good to hear from you again Mr, DeMar-uh, I mean, Paul[smile].
We only had one “Bright” here Paul, and poster Stanley left a long time ago.
Post #25 above all over again.
Paul, why don’t you share more of yourself with us here? I’d like to get to know the real you better.
Thanks John, I enjoy the discussions.
You’re welcome, Irene Abbott[Or do you prefer Mrs. Abbott, Miss Abbott, or just Irene?].
Paul: Gary DeMar!
Okay… so let me see if I have this straight. According to this author, the government of the United States was not fully based on the philosophies of the Enlightenment, since Christianity tempered the Enlightenment’s appeal to human reason alone.
Even if we take this as true, this does not then mean that the nation’s government was founded on the Christian faith. It only means that the philosophies used to found the government weren’t quite the same as might have been found elsewhere, and the differences are attributable to Christianity. This does not even imply that the foundation was Christianity itself; in fact, it subtly denies it. (Is something partly based on the Enlightenment considered to be established on Christianity? How would that work, chronologically speaking?)
And in spite of the fact that Deists recognized the existence of God, they did not recognize Jesus Christ as God. This would, under most definitions, not make them Christian. They also did not recognize the Bible as a form of divine revelation.
Let’s hear your own thoughts on this, not Gary DeMar’s. Please answer the questions about how much Christianity can be denied at the most basic foundations of a government and still have the government be considered to be established on Christianity in post #32, above.
As to the rest of the article, there were more quotes along the lines of “Christianity is necessary for a good society”, and “Christianity is necessary for government to succeed” (if they even bothered to address Christianity directly at all, as opposed to just “religion” or “good morals”), and “references to God appear in official documents” which I don’t disagree with and have already addressed. There was also repetition of the idea that many founders were Christian, and that that was important, but which does nothing to indicate that the government they founded was established on Christianity. Even Adams, who came the closest in this article to stating that the government was a Christian construct, referred to it as “mundane” (that is, as the Unabridged Random House Dictionary would put it, “of or pertaining to this world or earth as contrasted with heaven; worldly; earthly: common; ordinary; banal; unimaginative; of or pertaining to the world, universe, or earth”, emphasis mine) in the quote you provided. Yes, Christianity may have helped the founders get along. Yes, ideas in Chrstianity may have helped them conceive of the liberties we enjoy. But these statements are not the same as stating that the government itself is established upon Christianity.
It would be a shame to turn this into a quoting game when we have the government and the Bible themselves available for examination. After all, quotes only tell us what people think about the matter, at best; they do nothing to tell us what the facts of the matter are. Let’s get down to brass tacks. Please give me your thoughts on how you think the first four commandments can be reconciled with the Bill of Rights, assuming that the government was established on the Christian faith.
The Idea that it is America is without any doubt Christian in it’s principals. It’s foundation is based on a biblical one. Without Christianity you have no property right’s and therefore no liberty. You can re-right history but it doesn’t change the fact’s. You will see if people that think like you win the day, then oppression will rule the land. Why don’t you explain to me why you think the Law of God is a bad thing? You want to talk right’s or bill of right’s, ok you explain where they came from or why the founders wanted them in the first place?
Hey Matt is God the begining and the ending of everything or is atonomous man the begining or the end of all things?
It say’s in colossians to beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.
Paul: The Idea that it is America is without any doubt Christian in it’s principals.
I know that’s what you’re asserting. You’ve brought many examples to the table to show that people influential in American history thought it important to live morally or be religious — or even be Christian, if they felt like saying so. None of this, however, shows that the American government was created on the foundation of Christianity.
Paul: It’s foundation is based on a biblical one.
And that’s what I deny, based on the fact that government documents, even at their most foundational, contradict Biblical principles. They do not seek the same law that the Bible seeks.
If something is based on Christianity, I expect that it will reflect exactly the same truths that Christianity does. Otherwise, at best, you might be able to assert that it borrows some Christian ideas — but that does not make it Christian.
Do you disagree? How much of the Bible can something contradict and still be considered to be established on Christianity? Please be specific.
Can I claim to have a Christian belief if I claim that one can worship any deity or deities at all? Why is this still Christian?
Paul: Without Christianity you have no property right’s and therefore no liberty.
Interesting assertion. How do you figure? Are the only countries with concepts of property rights Christian ones?
It’s one thing to state that Christianity contains property rights. It’s quite another to state that without Christianity, there are no property rights. (My pen contains ink. This does not mean that if my pen is not in a place, ink cannot be in that place.)
Paul: You can re-right history but it doesn’t change the fact’s.
I’m not attempting to rewrite history. I’m trying to show that your assertions are untrue, and that the piles of quotes and examples you’re bringing to the discussion are not even addressing the point. We can agree that Christianity is vital to the well-being of a people and the smooth operation of its government, but that does not mean that the government was based on Christianity.
Paul: Why don’t you explain to me why you think the Law of God is a bad thing?
I don’t. That’s your assertion. Pointing out a contradiction between the Law of God and the foundational law of the land does not imply that I think that either one is bad; it only means that neither one uses the other as a foundation.
Paul: You want to talk right’s or bill of right’s, ok you explain where they came from or why the founders wanted them in the first place?
James Madison proposed the Bill of Rights in 1789 to the First United States Congress in response to protests from influential opponents (including some of the founding fathers) who argued that the Constitution, as it stood, failed to protect human liberty. Had he not done so, some argue, the conflict between Federalists and Anti-Federalists that had been raging since the Philadelphia Convention attempted to patch up the Articles of Confederation some two years earlier would likely have resulted in a failure of the United States to ratify the Constitution.
It was based on the Magna Carta (the 1215 charter — which permitted freedom of the Church of England, but did nothing to establish a faith for the government), the English Bill of Rights (which, though it allows Protestants to bear arms, does not specify any faith as a foundation for government), the Virginia Declaration of Rights (which specifically claims to grant rights because government remains in place under the forbearance of the people — the idea that God is the founder of government is nowhere to be found), and some of the philosophical works written during the Enlightenment (especially John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government — the first of which argues against the idea that government is divinely ordained, as advanced by Sir Robert Filmer). There is not the slightest indication that it was based on the Bible’s sense of law.
I would assert that the fact that the Bill of Rights guarantees liberties does not perforce make it Christian, even if some of the liberties happen to parallel some Christian ones. Some liberties are not granted under Christianity. One cannot believe in any deities one wishes and still be a Christian, for example.
Paul: Hey Matt is God the begining and the ending of everything or is atonomous man the begining or the end of all things?
Of course God is the beginning and ending of everything. I’ve never denied this. But as I’ve mentioned already, this does not mean that everything is established on the Christian faith.
Paul: It say’s in colossians to beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.
It seems to me that the assertion that something is based on Christianity even though its basis explicitly contradicts principles God set out for His people is just such a philosophy.
Men have been making all sorts of traditions for themselves by pretending that certain things are more holy than they really are all throughout history, never mind American history specifically. And it is frequently done for some of the most basic principles of the world: power and influence. Would you like examples?
That’s just it matt you miss it every time. And obviously I’m wasting my time. Bye for now
Paul: And obviously I’m wasting my time.
So let me make sure I have this right.
You ask us to believe something that, if one is careful about one’s faith and the ideas one embraces, requires an awful lot of direct support to take seriously: That the U.S. government was established on the Christian faith.
When asked to produce evidence that what you say is true, the best you can do is offer long copy-and-paste blocks of text written by someone else, all of which are (at best) only tangentially related to your main point and have nothing directly to do with establishing the government, either in its structure or in its documents.
When confronted with evidence that seems to contradict what you say, your only response is to yell and claim that the other side doesn’t think properly, and finally to announce that you need to leave.
I have to say that this behavior and these tactics of explaining what you believe to be true don’t exactly increase my confidence that what you have to say is remotely accurate, Paul.
Paul, don’t waste your time on pointy headed intellectuals that dwell on minutiae rather than looking at the big picture, and analyzing facts that are more evident than a herd of stampeding elephants.
It makes no difference to those that deny America’s Christian heritage that the very first document in American History, the Mayflower Compact begins “In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God of Great Britain, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, etc.
Having undertaken, for the Glory of God and advancement of the Christian Faith and Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the First Colony in the Northern Parts of Virginia, ” The State Constitutions ALL had provisions in them that elected officials adhere to some form of the Christian faith. It matters not that throughout our history, our leaders led the people in prayer. One of the first institutions established by Congress was the office of a Chaplain.
What’s more it has been this Christian heritage that has led so many oppressed to seek freedom in America. Christianity, as it is practiced in modern society does not execute or persecute those of other faiths. While our history in this regard is anything but stallar it is a far cry from what other civilization / religions have done to dissidents.
Remember it is the Liberals that believe giving the power to print money at will to handful of men is a good idea and will surely lead to eternal prosperity. The very people that promoted government spending to get the economy going, Keynesian economics, will surely work.
Much of what these Christians believe goes directly against God’s word. The truth is they do not know their history, their economics, their Bible, and now I doubt they even know science since they believe the climate change hoax.
These people are so ignorant of politics it is a miracle they can tie their shoes. They think Obama is coming down hard on big business, when in fact he is the friend of BIG, BIG business. It is the Mom and Pop operations he and his powerful business cronies seek to destroy. Big government is always the friend of Big Business….Always, just ask Benito Mussolini, or Adopf Hitler.
Mike: the Mayflower Compact
True, Mike, but while there are elements that our government borrowed from the Mayflower Compact, there are also interesting differences. What do you have to say about the law of the land with respect to the Ten Commandments? Can a system claim to be Christian that forever blocks out part of what many consider to be crucial to its moral code? How much can be denied? What can be denied, specifically? Are these things that people can deny and themselves still be considered to embrace the Christian faith? If not, why not, and why is there a difference?
Paul: “Without Christianity you have no property right’s and therefore no liberty.” Really? The reason Christ died was for property rights? And here I was thinking Christianity was about the redemptive power of God’s love for us.
Paul writes: “You can re-right history but it doesn’t change the fact’s.” Anybody else see the Freudian slip here?
Paul writes: “You will see if people that think like you win the day, then oppression will rule the land.” Argh, the irony, its killing me!
Mike: “What’s more it has been this Christian heritage that has led so many oppressed to seek freedom in America.” Christian heritage, or heritage of political and religious freedom – no state-mandated religion, Christian or otherwise, and no OFFICIAL blending of religion and political party?
“Haven’t we already had a historical experiment that is precisely what the culture warriors want? Wasn’t ancient Israel a nation whose constitution demanded obedience to the revealed law of God, and didn’t its executive branch use coercion to attain such obedience? Did Israel not, effectively, have the Ten Commandments in its courthouse? Yet which prophet ever had anything good to say about the nation? Indeed, as Jesus and the apostles more bluntly put it, which of the prophets did they not kill? If theocracy didn’t work in Israel, where God divinely instituted it, why do people insist on believing it will work in places where God manifestly has NOT instituted it?” from “Why Johnny Can’t Preach” by T. David Gordon
kash! Good to see you again! Thanks for stopping by!
kash: I was thinking Christianity was about the redemptive power of God’s love for us.
Excellent, solid point, kash, and exactly the sort of thing that corroborates my point — for something to be established on Christianity is a rather high thing, and requires high evidence. Simply stating that a lot of founders were devout Christians, or that a lot of founders extolled virtue (even Christian virtue) is interesting, but not enough to indicate that the government they founded was established on the Christian faith.
kash: “Why Johnny Can’t Preach” by T. David Gordon
Looks like another book to add to Mount Toberead.
Something both Kash and Matt seem to never see, I don’t know why but I think they think that Christianity is a power religion like Islam, but it’s not. Our founding is based on the Christian ethic and when I said property right’s I knew Kash would get it wrong because of her lack of understanding of how the law of God is not bad, it’s thinking it can save you from your sin’s is when it’s bad. It say’s in Galatians before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.In Psalms it say’s The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul;
The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. If Kash and Matt cannot connect the dots it’s because they don’t want too. Also there is a difference between an ecclesiastical priesthood in Isreal and a theocracy. Nowhere in the Bible does it say you are to be forced to believe in Christ, but if you are a Christian you will be for the promoting of the Law of God which is good for all because like it say’s in 1 John 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. I believe He’s Lord of ALL and he knows what’s best because he created us. If you don’t understand the origin of Liberty, you won’t be fighting for it, you’ll be helping to remove it.
Paul: “Kash and Matt cannot connect the dots it’s because they don’t want too.” Show me the dots that connect from the Law of God to “property rights”.
“but I think they think that Christianity is a power religion like Islam,” This from the man who quotes from a website all about “using” (I would say corrupting) Christianity to gain economic and political power.
Do stewards own the land they care for? No, it belongs to their master. We are stewards, God is our master, and He commands us to be just in our use and distribution of His creation. Property rights is how we in this country protect the wealth of individuals and thus encourage individuals to try and accrue wealth and property. This is a CIVIC law, not a divine law. Paul, you can not tell the difference, can you? I am glad to live in a country that guarantees my legal right to own property and do with it what I will as long as it doesn’t infringe on the rights of others, but God calls me to a responsibility much higher than that. For instance, the law allows me to do things with my property that God would never sanction. And God REPEATEDLY through his word warns against greed and stockpiling and amassing too much property to the detriment of others in the community. Also, He warns those that do have wealth and property that they are to care for those who don’t. I think if America truly passed laws regarding property that were consistent with God’s ethics people like Paul and Mike would be the first to complain that they were losing their “freedoms”. For instance, can you imagine Paul and Mike obeying the Jubilee laws where they must give their land back into the communal pot every 50 years? Makes inheritance tax look like small potatoes.
Kash: Your understanding of Scripture is horrendous. It’s no wonder Mike call’s you a useful idiot, I on the other hand just think your emotions rule you and you seek out any and all information that backs up your worldview, instead of seeking the truth. I know that’s from my point of view and no amount of truth someone brings you matters, you will keep seeking your own way.This also is demonstrated over and over again in the Word. Like I said, if I continue I will be wasteing my time, so see ya.
kash:”And God REPEATEDLY through his word warns against greed and stockpiling and amassing too much property to the detriment of others in the community.”
Spoken like a true Socialist / Statist. Only in their minds is wealth accumulated at the expense of others. The Bible is very clear on the subject of wealth, it is not a sin. Throughout scripture, one of God’s blessings is accumulation of great wealth. Job was blessed by God at the beginning of the book that bears his name and at the end. Abraham, David, Solomon, etc. were all blessed with great riches; but you will also notice that everyone around them were also blessed BECAUSE of the success of the one blessed. YOu are right kash in that we, Christians, are mere stewards of all that God has given us and we are to use His gifts to us wisely and for his glory. Giving a beggar money to buy a meal is good stewardship, giving a drunk money to buy a bottle is NOT.
Somehow you seem to think that government is made up of “good angels” who will use the money taken from the people for nothing but good purposes. How naive.
Paul is absolutely correct, it is a waste of time to discuss these things with you. You love the darkness more than light.
MattF:”True, Mike, but while there are elements that our government borrowed from the Mayflower Compact, there are also interesting differences. What do you have to say about the law of the land with respect to the Ten Commandments? Can a system claim to be Christian that forever blocks out part of what many consider to be crucial to its moral code? How much can be denied? What can be denied, specifically? Are these things that people can deny and themselves still be considered to embrace the Christian faith? If not, why not, and why is there a difference?”
This is what I mean about you being a pointy headed intellectual that dwells on the minutiae rather than having a practical discussion on a topic.
THE TOPIC is, “Is America a Christian nation?” I used the Mayflower Compact as AN EXAMPLE that from the beginning, the seeds of American Culture were Christian. Throughout our history, in both word and deed, our Christian heritage is evident.
So I establish my position, which I back up with documentation, and you go off on one of your intellectual dissections of my comments.
The evidence that supports America as a Christian nation (not a theocracy) is overwhelming. Take Christianity out of America and America ceases to exist as the beacon of freedom it has been for over 200 years.
Christianity is a power religion veiled by the message of redemption, Paul. I just think your emotions rule you and you seek out any and all information that backs up your worldview, instead of seeking the truth.
Paul, do you have any idea how “Christianity” looks to one of us nonChristians when we come to a Christian website like this and observe you call each other names, make snide remarks about drinking Kool Aide, and accuse each other about not being “real” Christians in a multitude of ways?
It makes you look just like every other organized religion in the world.
You know, I have heard[smile, wink] that it IS possible for people to agree to disagree on some things.
Kash:”CIVIC law, not a divine law. Paul, you can not tell the difference, can you?” What part of thou shalt not steal do you not understand, a person has a right to his property and his life according to God , this is a divine right. But you don’t seem to understand that civil government doesn’t have the right to take from the person what is theirs, according to God. When the civil government does this expect judgment, because things are now outside the natural God ordained order of things. As far as the year of jubilee, this is the ecclesiastical priesthood I spoke of in post 51that you can’t seem to rap your mind around.
And yes Mike is right when he said “Spoken like a true Socialist / Statist”. Socialism, Facism, and Communisum are all part of the same evil oppressive anti-Biblical ideology.
Why does God destroy Sodom and Gomorrah? Excessive wealth. Ezekial 16:49 Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, surfeit of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them, when I saw it.
What did Paul warn Timothy about repeatedly? Excessive wealth. “If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare, and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. Flee from these things, you man of God, and pursue righteousness…” I Timothy 6:9-11
To whom is James speaking when he writes, “Weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you.”? Rich people! James 5:1
Writes Amos, “Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory, and lounge on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the stall…Therefore they shall now be the first to go into exile, and the revelry of the loungers shall pass away.” (Amos 6:4, 7) In Israel, Amos described a kingdom in which the rich “trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth.” (Amos 2:7)
Isaiah warns that destruction would befall Judah because of its mistreatment of the poor: “Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees…to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right…What will you do on the day of punishment, in the calamity that will come from far away?” (Isaiah 10:1-3)
Jeremiah condemned the wealthy who had amassed riches at the expense of the poor. “They have become great and rich, they have grown fat and sleek. They know no bounds in deeds of wickedness; they judge not with justice the cause of the fatherless, to make it prosper, and they do not defend the rights of the needy. ‘Shall I not punish them for these things?’ says the Lord, ‘and shall I not avenge myself on a nation such as this?’” (Jeremiah 5:26-29)
I could go on and on. In fact, there are many more verses in the Bible warning against the misuse and hording of wealth than those praising wealth. And those that do seem to praise wealth often, when read it context, refer to SPIRITUAL prosperity NOT material goods. Go ahead, Paul and Mike, find verses that say God wants individuals to amass wealth and keep it to themselves.
kash, you know full well that it is the love of money that God abhors. Nowhere in the Bible will you find a single word about the government taking from one and giving it to another as part of God’s plan.
Wealth is a snare and Solomon is proof of how it can corrupt, but this does not mean that all wealthy Christians have been snared. We are to use the blessings from God, no matter what they are for his glory. That has been stated ad nasueum by me and others but you still cling to this repeated lie of yours, “Go ahead, Paul and Mike, find verses that say God wants individuals to amass wealth and keep it to themselves.”
Jesus said, it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into heaven. He did not say it was IMPOSSIBLE. The problem with wealth is that it becomes a person’s god. The same is true for power. Yet you promote giving tremendous Power and Wealth to a handful of people who will then rule over and enslave us all.
You refuse to see the very EVIL you are supporting. ONce again Paul nailed it when he told you that your knowledge of scripture is horrendous. You know the words but failed to grasp the meaning.
AS for mistreating the poor, the greatest damage done to the poor has been the establishment of welfare state, which was made possible by fiat money. Now the system is coming apart creating a whole new class of poor. How much of this insane destruction are you willing to tolerate before you say “enough.”
So far, it appears that you don’t mind seeing mass suffering as the economy collapses. Here is what your statist Keynesians have brought us and its only going to get worse:
New ghost towns: Industrial communities teeter on the edge By Rick Hampson, USA TODAY
RAVENSWOOD, W.Va. — When Henry Kaiser arrived 55 years ago, this place was no place — “a rural problem area,” the government called it, so poor and isolated that the population had dropped 15% since 1940.
That all changed after Kaiser, the industrialist who’d turned out ships and planes at a record pace in World War II, built the nation’s largest consolidated aluminum works here on the banks of the Ohio River.
The plant paid Tim Shumaker his first living wage, and he won the right to keep it two decades ago after his union was locked out for 19 months.
Today, that victory seems hollow. Shumaker, 49, has been laid off. Part of the vast aluminum complex is closed, and the rest is for sale — its orders down, its workforce reduced, its future uncertain. Shumaker stands at the locked plant gate and, after a year without work, worries what’s next for him and his community. “The way things are going,” he says, “there’s not going to be anything here.”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-03-01-townhangingon_N.htm?se=yahoorefer
According to government statistics, the commercial real estate market is in terrible shape and many commercial project funded by community banks are likely to belly up. This will have a devastating impact on everyone since countless jobs will be lost. 10 years of Keynesian style stimulus has brought us to this point and you support more of the same.
States like Calif., NY, NJ, Mich, Ill. etc are near bankrupt. Pension funds are in serious trouble. The bond rating agencies will soon be lowering the credit worthiness of not only many municipal bonds but also US government bonds.
Fiat money is collapsing. The US dollar is not rallying on fundamentals it is only going up because the Euro and the Pound are taking their turns at the whipping post.
Gold is the canary in the coal mine. It is breakout to new highs against every currency on the planet. THIS IS NOT GOOD. It is a sign that people are losing confidence in their currency and when that happens the currency goes to its intrinsic value….ZERO. Lord how I pray I am wrong but I know I’m not. I’ve told you that 2009 would be worse than 2008. I also said that 2010 would be worse than 2009, except for a bump we get before the election. 2011 through 2014 are going to be gut wrenchingly miserable. Expect to see more homelessness amoung families. Ghost malls that litter the landscape. Prostitution and the sex trade on the rise as people will do anything to feed their families. Crime is already rising (15% increase in home breakins in my area.)
Just the thought of this breaks my heart for I dearly love this country and all the freedoms it has provided people from all over the world, especially my family that left Cuba. I really do not understand you and what’s more I think you need to ask God for forgiveness for lying when you said, “Go ahead, Paul and Mike, find verses that say God wants individuals to amass wealth and keep it to themselves.” You knew full well that this was a LIE.
Paul: I don’t know why but I think they think that Christianity is a power religion like Islam, but it’s not.
The way it is supposed to be practiced, I’d agree that it’s not.
That has not prevented many people — in the United States and elsewhere, for centuries upon centuries — from leading others around to certain political agendas and ideals by using Christian-esque language and imagery, though. It’s been used, and continues to be used, for power grabs. That’s what I’m trying to stand against.
The foundation of our government is not Christianity. Some people have used language that sounds Christian to support the idea, supporting their arguments with a lot of things that sound close to the point and hoping people will fill in the gaps on their own.
kash: Our founding is based on the Christian ethic and when I said property right’s I knew Kash would get it wrong because of her lack of understanding of how the law of God is not bad, it’s thinking it can save you from your sin’s is when it’s bad.
Kash never said that the law of God can save you from your sins.
In a related vein, that’s not the issue that I’m raising, either. It’s that the Law that God ordained for His followers is fundamentally incompatible with the most basic laws of the land. One cannot claim that the foundation of the government is Christianity if it bars Christian principles from ever being established as principles of the society. (Not that I’m arguing that this kind of structure would make for a good thing, really.)
Property law is not grace, either, of course.
Paul: If Kash and Matt cannot connect the dots it’s because they don’t want too.
Or because the connection simply isn’t there.
kash: Nowhere in the Bible does it say you are to be forced to believe in Christ, but if you are a Christian you will be for the promoting of the Law of God which is good for all because like it say’s in 1 John 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.
No, we are not forced to believe in Christ, but the idea of believing in Christ is fundamental to Christianity [John 14:6; Acts 4:12]. Anything that is truly based on Christianity must carry this simple premise, among others. Otherwise, it may have some things in common with Christianity, but it cannot be said to be established on Christianity.
We can also agree that keeping God’s commandments are not burdensome for those who love God. Those with apathy or antipathy toward God might not feel the same way.
Mike: I used the Mayflower Compact as AN EXAMPLE that from the beginning, the seeds of American Culture were Christian. Throughout our history, in both word and deed, our Christian heritage is evident.
This may be invoking Godwin a bit heavily, but the German people could also point to a rich cultural Christian heritage, and its language and rites reflected that heritage into and beyond the influence of the National Socialists during a particularly nasty period in their history. This does not mean that its society was Christian, or even that it was based on Christianity!
Mike: So I establish my position, which I back up with documentation, and you go off on one of your intellectual dissections of my comments.
Because the documentation does not establish what you claim. It makes an interesting side point, but it does not show how one can reconcile the fact that actions practiced by Christ’s followers can never be part of the legislated and enforced governmental code. The most fundamental ideas in Christianity can never be represented as ideas in the government.
Mike: The evidence that supports America as a Christian nation (not a theocracy) is overwhelming.
“America has a strong Christian heritage/history/culture” is not the same as “America was founded on Christianity”. Christianity is not based on the tradition of man [Colossians 2:8]. We cannot mistake tradition of Christianity with establishment upon Christianity.
Mike: Take Christianity out of America and America ceases to exist as the beacon of freedom it has been for over 200 years.
Perhaps that’s true. But even if so, this still does not mean that America is founded on Christianity. (I’d agree with it in some sense, but I’d argue that it’s the influence of Christians in the society, not that the society was established on Christianity.)
Matt:First of all you said “it may have some things in common with Christianity, but it cannot be said to be established on Christianity.” No one but you said it was established on Christianity, what I’ve been saying is the Laws and ethics are based on the Bible, and slowly they are being removed. Let me ask you something, if the people of the country elected politicians in majority and let’s say they wanted to restore the Ten Commandments in the court houses and restore our heritage the way it was, would you be for or against that?
Matt: You said “Property law is not grace, either, of course” No one said it was. Even John Adams knew this and said as much “The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If “Thou shalt not covet,” and “Thou shalt not steal,” were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free.”
And when people can and do elect politicians to steal as much as they want (for this reason or that) for the common good then we have a problem, and we do have a problem.
Paul: No one but you said it was established on Christianity,
Mike, post #6: The US was established as a Christian nation. THat is fact whether you like it or not.
Irene, post #10: You can twist the truth so you believe it, but please don’t take people for fools and try to convince others that you’ve just argued that we weren’t founded on the Christian faith. (strongly implying that the opposite is what is true)
Those were easy.
Paul: what I’ve been saying is the Laws and ethics are based on the Bible,
In a sense. There are some things they have in common with the Bible, but that’s not the same thing. They grant liberties the Bible doesn’t and vice versa.
Some people say that all faiths are the same because they share some of the same principles, e.g., the “Golden Rule”. Is this commonality a reason to believe that all religions have a common philosophy and basis?
Paul: Let me ask you something, if the people of the country elected politicians in majority and let’s say they wanted to restore the Ten Commandments in the court houses and restore our heritage the way it was, would you be for or against that?
I’d be against putting the Ten Commandments in our court houses, because the laws they dictate are not the laws of the land, and I don’t want to drag something I love so much as God’s Word down to something so base as the judicial branch of a country’s government; that only makes one seem less important than it really is, or makes the other seem more important than it really is, or both.
I’ve mentioned my stance on this before. Christianity is important as a force in the minds and hearts of people. It is a mistake to try to use it as a governmental or societal force.
“The way it was”? When? When we were conducting witch hunts in the McCarthy era, narrowly defining what patriotism was by certain definitions of culture and faith? When we were hunting actual witches in Salem? When mob law ruled in many parts of the country because effective law enforcement was difficult or impossible? When people held such deep religious prejudices that it was impossible in many places to find a job or support one’s family unless one was a member of a church? This is far from a simple question, Paul.
MattF:”I’d be against putting the Ten Commandments in our court houses, because the laws they dictate are not the laws of the land, and I don’t want to drag something I love so much as God’s Word down to something so base as the judicial branch of a country’s government; that only makes one seem less important than it really is, or makes the other seem more important than it really is, or both.”
I guess you would be in favor of tearing down the Supreme court building. Moses and the 10 Commandments are depicted in several places. OF course I will admit that our founding fathers took the best of all governments / societies when they established this nation, therefore, Christianity cannot claim as the sole foundation of the US. That said, the single greatest influence on our culture is Christianity. It is the cornerstone.
Paul:”And when people can and do elect politicians to steal as much as they want (for this reason or that) for the common good then we have a problem, and we do have a problem.” Paul are you suggesting that God did not say, “Thou shalt not steal, but it’s OK for the government to take your possessions and give them to someone else.” The problem with socialism is that at some point you run out of “other people’s money.” When the producers are taxed and regulated to the point that the fruit of their labor is no longer theirs, they either stop producing or leave the country.
Nations that have implimented high taxes, Big government, and over regulations have seen a migration of their most productive people out of the country. The US has benefitted for 2 centuries as individuals sought more freedom, which is NOT synonomous with Big government, in the US. We are seeing this phenomenon in our own country. High tax states are losing their most productive people, which is why high tax states like California, NJ, NY, etc. are in the worst financial conditions.
But all of this is lost on the liberal elites. In their world only the chosen few should be selected to rule over the unwashed masses. IN the end there is very little difference between Socialism and the old Feudal system of serf and master.
Mike: I guess you would be in favor of tearing down the Supreme court building.
I’ve mentioned it before. I don’t think it does the nobility of our faith a service by tying it to such flawed and ephemeral things as the government of the United States. I don’t advocate destruction on that basis, though.
Frankly, if there’s a good way to celebrate faith in official channels without appearing to be affiliated with it, I’d love to see that embraced. The temptation for people to compromise, however, is rather strong; perhaps I’m cynical, but I can’t see how this wouldn’t lead to the corruption of both parties.
Paul and Mike, you constantly conflate ANY taxes as stealing. Then you argue that God specifically meant no taxation in the commandment, Thou shalt not steal. When it suits your agenda, you make huge leaps between Biblical law and what you THINK should be American law, and then when anyone else points out the shaky connection you fall back on the non sequitor “Government can’t save you from sins, and if you put your faith in government you an idiot.”
I looke to God for my salvation, and only God. I look to the Bible for ethics and behavior. However, I live in a secular world and a country with a secular government. I expect them to demand taxes of me for that privilege, since in this secular country and under this secular government, though imperfect, I enjoy a high standard of living and am guarantee religious and political freedom. I want that same standard of living and political and religious freedom for any and every American citizen or would-be American citizen, regardless of their ethnicity or religion. Anything else would be unChristian and unAmerican.
That last post was by yours truly.
“And when people can and do elect politicians to steal as much as they want (for this reason or that) for the common good then we have a problem, and we do have a problem.” You know, people only seem to think its stealing when the money is going to some other district. When it is for programs and jobs in THEIR district, they seem to be ok with it. Case in point, my own senator Richard Shelby holding up nominees a few weeks ago because he wanted his share of stimulus money for pet projects here in Alabama. Fiscal conservative my derriere, no one is a fiscal conservative they just want to the money for their own friends and neighbors. I simply have a wider view than most of who is my friend and neighbor, as my Lord instructs me to do.
Is There Secular Justification for Anything?by Gary DeMar
Stanley Fish, writing in the New York Times, describes the way various traditions understand the “role of religion and public life.” He begins by pointing out that “Classical Liberalism,” not to be confused with a leftist political philosophy, “is that policy decisions should be made on the basis of secular reasons, reasons that, because they do not reflect the commitments or agendas of any religion, morality or ideology, can be accepted as reasons by all citizens no matter what their individual beliefs and affiliations.” Their reasoning goes like this:
“It’s O.K. to argue that a proposed piece of legislation will benefit the economy, or improve the nation’s health, or strengthen national security; but it’s not O.K. to argue that a proposed piece of legislation should be passed because it comports with a verse from the book of Genesis or corresponds to the will of God.”
So what is the basis for law? What constitutes “all citizens”? There is no way that “all citizens” are ever going to agree on anything. Ultimately, where does morality find its justification, its jurisdictional legitimacy? Every person approaches an ethical norm with a prior commitment to some fundamental interpretive principle. No one is commitmentless. No one approaches anything in a neutral way. There is no agreed upon definition of reason or what’s reasonable. Even the Enlightenment skeptics acknowledged that “reason is incompetent to answer any fundamental question about God, morality, or the meaning of life.”
Fish offers what he describes as a “more severe version of the argument”:
On the other hand, you are not supposed even to have religious thoughts when reflecting on the wisdom or folly of a piece of policy. Not only should you act secularly when you enter the public sphere; you should also think secularly.
So if a person believes that abortion is wrong because God has created us in His image, and killing a human being at any stage of life is an affront to His character, then just to have these thoughts disqualifies that person from entering the debate.
Such a position would have disqualified those who signed the Declaration of Independence because they believed that God is the “Judge of the World” and the Creator who endowed us with “life.” What is the basis for morality given material-only assumptions about reality? This approach is a dead-end. R.C. Sproul writes that “God’s existence is the chief element in constructing any worldview. To deny this chief premise is to set one’s sails for the island of nihilism. This is the darkest continent of the darkened mind-the ultimate paradise of the fool.”
A third “somewhat less stringent version of the argument permits religious reasons to be voiced in contexts of public decision-making so long as they have a secular counterpart: thus, citing the prohibition against stealing in the Ten Commandments is all right because there is a secular version of the prohibition rooted in the law of property rights rather than in a biblical command.” But what is the source of this “secular counterpart”? Where is “the law of property rights” found? Political systems like Communism don’t recognize a “law of property rights.” Even Classical Liberals, many of whom are atheists, can’t account for the ultimate legitimacy for property rights.
The more honest secularists are coming to realize that their reason-only, matter oriented worldview cannot account for what they claim is natural and reasonable. Steven Smith attempts to offer a solution in his book The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse. “It is not, Smith tells us, that secular reason can’t do the job (of identifying ultimate meanings and values) we need religion to do; it’s worse; secular reason can’t do its own self-assigned job-of describing the world in ways that allow us to move forward in our projects-without importing, but not acknowledging, the very perspectives it pushes away in disdain.” Smith’s solution is “by smuggling in notions that are formally inadmissible, and hence that cannot be openly acknowledged or adverted to.” What are some of these notions? “Notions about a purposive cosmos, or a teleological nature stocked with Aristotelian ‘final causes’ or a providential design.” The reason these principles must be smuggled in is because they have been “banished from secular discourse because they stipulate truth and value in advance rather than waiting for them to be revealed by the outcomes of rational calculation.”
Fish’s conclusion is fitting: “Insofar as modern liberal discourse rests on a distinction between reasons that emerge in the course of disinterested observation-secular reasons-and reasons that flow from a prior metaphysical commitment, it hasn’t got a leg to stand on.” Arthur Leff argued in a similar way when he concluded his article “Unspeakable Ethics, Unnatural Law” with these words: “All I can say is this: it looks as if we are all we have. . . . As things now stand, everything is up for grabs. . . . There is in the world such a thing as evil. [All together now:] Sez who? God help us.”
Kash:”Paul and Mike, you constantly conflate ANY taxes as stealing”
I don’t recall either Paul or I saying any such thing. Taxes are necessary for the efficient operations of government. Key word is efficient. There are some things that government does well but redistributing wealth is not one of them and it is certainly not Biblical. 50 years ago the average tax burden was just under 20%, today it is more than double that, which is one reason why it takes 2 workers to keep a family going. Stealing through taxation occurs when:
1. government takes money from my paycheck and gives it to someone else.
2. government prints money thus lowering the value of the money I have worked for.
Simple enough for even you to understand.
kash: “You know, people only seem to think its stealing when the money is going to some other district. When it is for programs and jobs in THEIR district, they seem to be ok with it. Case in point, my own senator Richard Shelby holding up nominees a few weeks ago because he wanted his share of stimulus money for pet projects here in Alabama.” Exactly!! Now you get it!! It doesn’t make any difference, except maybe in extremes, whether the Democrats or the Republicans are in power the outcome is the same….higher deficits a ballooning debt, and eventual destruction of the currency. The only way to solve the problem to any extent is to have a sound monetary policy where government through its central bank can create money out of thin air. This way all government expenditures would have to be paid for through taxes and borrowing would be kept to a minimum. It was only after Nixon took us off the Gold standard that the debt did not matter. Presidents were loathed to leave office with too much debt.
So under a sound (gold / silver) backed monetary system, if the nation wanted welfare it would have to pay for it through taxes not borrowing. If the country sent troops overseas, taxes would have to go up to pay for the foreign adventures. In other words, everyone would have skin in the game. But when government can print money or have it printed through its central bank, politicians are free to promise the people everything their hearts desire and go off any expedition they wish to send troops.
Now a return to an asset backed currency is no panacea and provides no guarantee that politicians will not misuse the public funds, but it sure puts a limit on how far they can go.
Here is a thought. Derivatives have been with us for centuries, but only recently did these instruments nearly bring down the global financial system….and the jury is still out whether or not the system as it exists today will survive. I think it won’t and we will go to some sort of gold certificate ratio. The day Nixon closed the gold window on the US dollar is the day the world went on a fiat currency system. At no time in history has their been global fiat currency. Is it no wonder that gold is rising against every currency on the planet.
kash, I just read your post # 69 and to tell you the truth it made no sense. Who relies on government for salvation? Kash,” you make huge leaps between Biblical law and what you THINK should be American law, and then when anyone else points out the shaky connection you fall back on the non sequitor “Government can’t save you from sins, and if you put your faith in government you an idiot.”
I looke to God for my salvation, and only God. I look to the Bible for ethics and behavior.” You only look to the Bible in only those areas in which you agree. Doug tried to connect the dots for you regarding what the Bible says about just weights and measures and our own fiat currency. The message there couldn’t be clearer but you REFUSED to see it because then you would have to reject the socialist / fascist Keynesian system. Your faith in government and John Maynard Keynes comes through loud and clear.
Here you begin to go off the reservation when you state, “I live in a secular world and a country with a secular government. I expect them to demand taxes of me for that privilege.” I thought we paid taxes to fund government operations, but that is no longer the case. Government funding through borrowing has gone exponential and by the end of the decade interest on the debt will consume nearly all tax revenues and that is if interest rates do not rise. BTW, these are projections from the GAO.
Here you go and contradict yourself when you state, “under this secular government, though imperfect, I enjoy a high standard of living and am guarantee religious and political freedom. I want that same standard of living and political and religious freedom for any and every American citizen or would-be American citizen, regardless of their ethnicity or religion. Anything else would be unChristian and unAmerican.” Your high standard of living came through the wealth creation of previous generations that worked under a sound monetary system. The Greatest Economy man has ever known that enriched the lives of more people than humanity could ever imagine was done under an asset backed currency. Once all assets were removed from the currency (this took place gradually from 1913 to 1971) fiat money became the medium of exchange and the debt monster now had an unlimited diet upon which to feed. Through debt we began to mortgage our future and consume the wealth created by the previous generations. Over the past 2 decades debt on all levels exploded creating the illusion of growing wealthy society but in truth we were pedal to the metal headed for the poor house.
What we as a nation inherited we have squandered much like a spoiled child that inherits a fortune but ends up on skid row. Where once our government represented 2% of GDP it now represents over 20%. By 2020 it will be 40% of GDP which will mean a lower standard of living for nearly every American.
The government never provided you or your parents or grandparents with any wealth. What our government did was provide them the opportunities to enjoy the fruits of the labor and use them as they saw fit. Yes they paid taxes but taxes were not as burdensome as they are today, neither were regulation that drive up prices and really accomplish nothing but give a bureaucrat a job.
As for your freedoms; yes you had and enjoyed them but now you are ready, willing, and able to deny these same freedoms to your posterity. When it comes to your politics, I really cannot find much connection to Christianity. Only in your mind is the government a good substitute for the church.
I expect my government to reign in spending and decrease the deficit, as they did under Clinton. I also expect that some of us in the top income brackets (hopefully not the middle class, as they are being squeezed the most under current tax law ie Bush era tax law) will have to shoulder a higher tax burden thanks to the situation our country now finds itself in because of some very bad choices over the past twelve years.
Mike: “As for your freedoms; yes you had and enjoyed them but now you are ready, willing, and able to deny these same freedoms to your posterity.” Oh please. What freedom am I being denied, or you for that matter?
“Only in your mind is the government a good substitute for the church.” Putting thoughts in my head and words in my mouth, as usual. The government and the church have separate spheres of influence and responsibility that my overlap in some areas, but I certainly can tell the difference and am grateful for it. I don’t want my church to spend money fixing roads and building bridges or my government holding revivals and telling me what to believe. Church social programs help fill in the gaps in government social programs, but churches could not do it alone, as the current recession has proven. Most local churches around here are financially strapped trying to help families whose incomes have dropped because of lost jobs, hours cut back, loss of work-provided health care, etc. These families only manage to survive while looking for new jobs or more hours at the local plant by relying both on church resources AND government help through unemployment, medicaid, etc.
God is sovereign over every area of life, even civil government (politics included). Our government is not secular and if you are a Christian you should understand this and if you don’t read your Bible without a preconcieved notion of who God is, so as to not create a god of your own.
There is nothing in heaven above or on earth below that escapes His jurisdiction.
God rules the forces of creation:
I know that the Lord is great, and that our Lord is above all gods. Whatever the Lord pleases, He does, in heaven
and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps. He causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; who makes lightings for the
rain; who brings forth the wind from His treasuries (Psalm 135:5-7).
He sends forth His command to the earth; His word runs very swiftly. He gives snow like wool; He scatters the frost like ashes. He casts forth His ice as fragments; Who can stand before His cold? He sends forth His Word and melts them; He causes His wind to blow and the waters to flow (Psalm 147:15-18).
For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things (Romans 11:36).
The Lord has made everything for His own purpose (Proverbs 16:4).
God rules the course of history:
He works all things after the counsel of His own will (Ephesians 1:11).
Remember the former things long past, for I am God, and there is no other, I am God, and there is no one
like Me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not been done,
saying, My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure (Isaiah 46:9-10).
For not from the east, nor from the west, nor from the desert comes exaltation; but God is the Judge; He puts down one,
and exalts another (Psalm 75:6-7).
Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke, and it was done;
He commanded, and it stood fast. The counsel of the Lord stands for- ever, the plans of His heart from generation to generation (Psalm 33:8-9, 11).
God rules the hearts and minds and ways of men:
A man’s heart devises his way, but the Lord directs his steps (Proverbs 16:9). For in Him we live, and move, and have our being
(Acts 17:28).
It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). For this God is our God forever and ever He
will be our guide even unto death (Psalm 48:14).
God rules the nations of the earth:
For the Kingdom is the Lord’s, and He rules over the nations (Psalm 22:28).
Why are the nations in an uproar, and the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand, and the
rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed: “Let us tear their fetters apart, and cast away their cords from
us!” He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them. Then He will speak to them in His anger and terrify them in His
wrath (Psalm 2:1-5).
The Lord nullifies the counsel of the nations; He frustrates the plans of the peoples (Psalm 33:10). And they sang the song of Moses the bond-servant of
God and the song of the Lamb, saying, ‘Great and marvelous are Thy works, O Lord God, the Almighty: Righteous and true are Thy ways, Thou king of the nations. Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? For Thou alone are holy; for all the nations will come and worship before Thee, for Thy righteous acts
have been revealed” (Revelation 15:3-4).
Arise, O God, judge the earth! For it is Thou who dost possess all the nations (Psalm 82:8).
God rules everything and everyone, everywhere and at all times. For, “the Lord has established His throne
in the heavens, and His sovereignty rules over all” (Psalm 103:19).
Paul: “Our government is not secular” You obviously don’t know what the word “secular” means. You apparently think it means “atheist” or “not under God’s dominion” or whatever. You can be a Christian and still support a secular government….like our founding fathers, for instance. You really need to unhook youself from the American Vision kool-aid. You are being brainwashed by a purportedly “Christian” organization that is more like a cult than anything else.
In other words, all of those verses you quoted above are true for all nations and all governments, no matter what type of government they have. The type of government in some CLAIMS to be a theocracy, as in divinely inspired (Muslim countries, for instance) but most are secular, regardless of the majority religion of the population historically or currently. For instance, England still has a state church – Anglican – but the archbishop no longer is officially part of the government. Do you understand the difference? As opposed to the Ayatollah in Iran, who is the de facto leader of the nation. You make think “secular” is a bad word, but actually, it is secular governments that tend to guarantee the most religious freedom and where Christianity tends to flourish. Rest assured, the founding fathers most definitely wanted to establish a SECULAR democratic government, as they knew first hand the oppression of Christian theocracies.
Also, remember, government is a THING made up of PEOPLE. Government (the thing) can only be secular by definition, because it is a worldly thing. It would have to be some sort of ecclesiastical or sacred thing to be anything BUT secular. The three branches of government are many things, but they have never been considered sacred in the true religious meaning of the word!
Kash: Oh your one to talk, you and your Sojourners. Talk about getting Scripture way wrong, common Kash Christian values and principals aren’t progressive in any way shape or form. And you call AV a cult, they prove what they say with biblical hermanutics. Sojourners cut’s the bible up to say what they want it to mean, even the apostle peter mentions people like this and how they will twist the scriptures.
Kash: “I expect my government to reign in spending and decrease the deficit, as they did under Clinton. I also expect that some of us in the top income brackets (hopefully not the middle class, as they are being squeezed the most under current tax law ie Bush era tax law) will have to shoulder a higher tax burden thanks to the situation our country now finds itself in because of some very bad choices over the past twelve years.”
You are a hopeless ideologue….totally hopeless. You base your opinions on some fantasy world you have created. If we had budget surpluses under Clinton then why did the national debt continue to RISE? Government accounting is so fraudulant that if any corporation in America kept its books like the US government, the whole executive officers would be thrown in jail. YOu didn’t even take the time to listen to the Huffington Post video where the complete fraud is exposed. It was the Clinton Administration that STOPPED Brooksley Born from regulating OTC derivatives as was her obligation. It was OTC derivatives that created this economic disaster. Of course the Bush Administration added to the problem by letting the banks regulate their own leverage (2004) It was both Democrats and Republicans that repealed Glass Stegal in 1999.
Of course I’ve run this past you before numerous times and yet you still don’t get it. I don’t think you are that stupid, I think though you wish to remain blind and adhere to your love of the Liberal Left and Big government. As for taxing the rich, the Comptroller of the US….the head accountant, David Walker has already stated that you could tax the American people at 100% of their income and we would still be in deficit according to GAAP accounting. This year’s real deficit, according to GAAP will be $9 trillion!! The whole GDP of the nation, which includes government spending is $13 trillion.
Enron got into trouble and went bankrupt because of off book debts. Guess what, the US government has been doing this for years and it really got bad under Bush and is worse under Obama.
You can’t be this stupid….no one can. You are either delusional or a hopeless ideologue whose religion is the extreme left wing of the Democrat party. Your DNA must have the words Devout Statist running through it.
In his, “A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America” [1787-1788], John Adams wrote:
“The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.
James Madison, whom many refer to as the father of the Constitution, expressed in his letter to Edward Livingston, 10 July 1822:
“And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”
When the governments of Europe, where the Church and State were enmeshed, faltered in the 20th century, their populaces largely abandoned the faith along with the old style of government. Luckily for us in the United States, because the church is separate from government, when our government fails us or is caught in corruption (as it always will), our faith does not have to be besmirched as well. THAT is why Americans are, in general, more religious that Europeans. A sure way to kill faith and doom the Church is to link it in an official capacity with government.
Paul, all I can say is that Sojourners is one of many sites I visit and quote. You get all of your information, political views, and theology from one website. I think that is always a dangerous practice. Who do you worship? Christ or Gary DeMar?
Oh, and by the way, nothing I’ve written since coming back to this site has been from Sojourners. I always reference when I quote extensively from a site, as you have gotten better about doing.
kash: “Oh please. What freedom am I being denied, or you for that matter?” Are you that selfcentered that you think everyone else is too. I thought we Christians were to believe that what is done to our brother is done to us. Let’s start with confiscatory taxes which is a way of denying property rights. How about the GM bond holders that had their property rights violated when government took over the assets due the bond holders of the company and handed it over to BIG UNION. How about this little tid bit:
White House land grab By Sen. Jim DeMint
You’d think the Obama administration is busy enough controlling the banks, insurance companies and automakers, but thanks to whistleblowers at the Department of the Interior, we now learn they’re planning to increase their control over energy-rich land in the West.
A secret administration memo has surfaced revealing plans for the federal government to seize more than 10 million acres from Montana to New Mexico, halting job- creating activities like ranching, forestry, mining and energy development. Worse, this land grab would dry up tax revenue that’s essential for funding schools, firehouses and community centers.
President Obama could enact the plans in this memo with just the stroke of a pen, without any input from the communities affected by it.
At a time when our national unemployment rate is 9.7 percent, it is unbelievable anyone would be looking to stop job-creating energy enterprises, yet that’s exactly what’s happening.
The document lists 14 properties that, according to the document, “might be good candidates” for Mr. Obama to nab through presidential proclamation. Apparently, Washington bureaucrats believe it’s more important to preserve grass and rocks for birdwatchers and backpackers than to keep these local economies thriving.
Administration officials claim the document is merely the product of a brainstorming session, but anyone who reads this memo can see that it is a wish list for the environmentalist left. It discusses, in detail, what kinds of animal populations would benefit from limiting human activity in those areas.
The 21-page document, marked “Internal Draft-NOT FOR RELEASE,” names 14 different lands Mr. Obama could completely close for development by unilaterally designating them as “monuments” under the 1906 Antiquities Act.
It says all kinds of animals would be better off by doing so, like the coyotes, badgers, grouse, chickens and lizards. But giving the chickens more room to roost is no reason for the government to override states’ rights.
Rep. Robert Bishop, Utah Republican, made the memo public because he didn’t want another unilateral land grab by the White House, like what happened under former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.
Using the Antiquities Act, President Carter locked up more land than any other president had before him, taking more than 50 million acres in Alaska despite strong opposition from the state. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/02/white-house-land-grab/
My sister’s step daughter has some property in California she wanted to build her dream house on. It turned out that about an acre of that land was declared a wetland (it was actually a mudhole). She had to pay $90,000 so wetland elsewhere could be purchased to replace her mudhole which remains a mudhole to this day. A friend of mine that has a small paint business has to file his taxes quarterly. On one occassion he made the horrible mistake of using the right form but the wrong date on it. He paid his taxes but was told he had to pay again even though his only mistake was using the wrong form. It wasn’t worth hiring a lawyer so he just paid up and the interest and penalties were abusive if you ask me.
Then of course there is the case of my mother who pays more in taxes on her commercial real estate property than she makes in profits. The building has been unoccupied now for over a year but she still has to pay $12,000 in property taxes because the county values the property at $550,000. She has it up for sale and will let it go for anything reasonable, which I think is less than half of what the county has it valued. Of course when she was getting the property ready to rent as commercial, the government regulation made her spend $50,000 in useless / meaningless renovations like a concrete ramp for the handicapped. This for a tiny used car lot that had at most 6 cars parked out from for sale. She also had to build a 5 foot wall then was told it was 2 feet short. THE GOVERNMENT PUT HER THROUGH HELL and when you factor in insurance and expenses, it has made more money than she did on that property, which my father worked his butt off to secure a future for his family.
Then there is the case of a company that wanted to build a refinery in Arizona, outside of Phoenix. The company spent millions going through the permitting process only to be stopped in court by the Environmentalists. After 12 years the company gave up and built the refinery in Mexico. When I was a kid, sales taxes were about 2 to 3%. Now they are well over double that amount. The decline in our educational system can be directly tied to the intervention of the Federal Government. The Department of Education does more harm than good as do so many of the unfunded mandates that are destroying state budgets. I don’t think an enemy take over of Washington could do any more harm than our elected officials have done.
Your religion is statism not Christianity. You seek not the truth, you only seek to confirm what you already believe, which is the perfect definition of blind faith.
Kash, you post #83 has to do with what issue. No one here is suggesting a theocracy. I am all for “Congress shall not establish religion.” What does that have to do with whether or not the cornerstone of US culture….Western Culture is Christianity?
It facinates me when I address an issue you have brought up and you move on to something irrelevent. Have you watched the 7 minute video from the Huffington Post? Have you googled Brooksley Born or watched the PBS special. I think not and if you did it would not change your mind one bit as you cannot deny your religious beliefs….Statism.
“If we had budget surpluses under Clinton then why did the national debt continue to RISE?” During the Clinton years, the deficit went down. There is a difference between the budget deficit and the national debt, as you well know. Sure, it would have been more impressive if the debt had gone down also, but at least during the Clinton years we were going in the right direction on spending, or at least as close as we’ve come to it in the past 100 years.
Kash, the surplus you speak of in #88 was based on smoke and mirrors accounting. First of all the government continued to take money from Social Security, Federal Retirement programs, and comingle them with the general fund. The deficits went down while the debt went up. I know the difference. Do you understand government accounting? I think not, and you don’t want to understand it.
The other reason the deficit went down is because we had the ILLUSION of a strong economy. The economy was being driven by a mountain of debt and the easy money provided by the Fed. How do you think we got the Dot Com bubble followed by the Real Estate Bubble?
I’ve covered this with you before and no one can discuss an issue with a moron or an ideologue. It would be easier to bring a radical Muslim with a bomb strapped on him to Christ than to open your eyes to the truth.
But maybe this article will help a bit:
Economists: Another Financial Crisis on the Way
Nonpartisan Group Led by Nobel Winner Calls for Stronger Financial Reforms
By MATTHEW JAFFE
March 2, 2010
Even as many Americans still struggle to recover from the country’s worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, another crisis – one that will be even worse than the current one – is looming, according to a new report from a group of leading economists, financiers, and former federal regulators.
In the report, the panel, that includes Rob Johnson of the United Nations Commission of Experts on Finance and bailout watchdog Elizabeth Warren, warns that financial regulatory reform measures proposed by the Obama administration and Congress must be beefed up to prevent banks from continuing to engage in high risk investing that precipitated the near collapse of the U.S. economy in 2008.
The report warns that the country is now immersed in a “doomsday cycle” wherein banks use borrowed money to take massive risks in an attempt to pay big dividends to shareholders and big bonuses to management – and when the risks go wrong, the banks receive taxpayer bailouts from the government.
“Risk-taking at banks,” the report cautions, “will soon be larger than ever.”
Without more stringent reforms, “another crisis – a bigger crisis that weakens both our financial sector and our larger economy – is more than predictable, it is inevitable,” Johnson says in the report, commissioned by the nonpartisan Roosevelt Institute http://abcnews.go.com/Business/economists-warn-financial-us-economy/story?id=9990828
or this one:
(Mike’s note:
The US economy is driven by the levels of consumer activity.
For those that see a rosy economic future, explain this.)
More consumers file for bankruptcy protection
By Christine Dugas, USA TODAY
The economic recovery effort has not slowed consumer bankruptcy filings. They surged 14% in February compared with a year earlier, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute.
The 111,693 cases filed last month also represented a 9% increase from January, the report said.
“The debt-stress overhang from years of consumer spending has a more acute impact now because of troubling economic times,” says Samuel Gerdano, American Bankruptcy Institute executive director.
And that financial distress is driving more Americans to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which — if approved — allows a court to discharge most unsecured consumer debt, including credit card bills.
When a stricter bankruptcy law took effect in 2005, a major goal was to require more families to rely on Chapter 13 bankruptcy, which requires filers with regular income to repay debts in full, or in part, over several years.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2010-03-03-bankruptcy03_ST_N.htm
Mike, Paul is most certainly suugesting a theocracy, though he doesnt’ call it as much. You continue to assume that all my posts are directed specifically to you, even when I start them Paul:…
Mike: The level that I am taxed in no way inhibits my guaranteed freedoms under the law. You see “confiscatory taxes” as an infringement of your freedom, I do not. The TVA took hundreds of acres from my family back in the 70s even though my family didn’t want to sell. They paid them for it, some of the family claims not enough, but the family has done well financially from that money where it was invested. The community thought that the TVA project was going to bring jobs, so they voted for it. The jobs never materialized, and it was a shame, but it wasn’t stealing. It was part of living in a democracy and my family is much better off than most people here so it would be the height of insensitivity and selfishness for me to complain.
Interesting,….it’s like I never posted post 58.
Mike, listening to you and Paul talking about our country is making the collapse of “America” sound more and more appealing to me.
John, I must have missed your message #58 and you are correct. As Christians we are to overcome the flesh but the flesh is so strong. We will never reach perfection in this life and from time to time the worst of our character comes through.
As for the collapse of America, I still hold out hope that it will be averted. We will have to cleans the system and change course and that process will be horribly painful since we have kicked the can down the road all these years and now we are at the end of the road. I am prepared for the worst and pray that it never happens. The collapse of a currency is a horrible event and leads to social unrest, poverty, rising crime, and even death for those too weak to deal with the crisis. Detroit was once known as the Paris of the West, now the city is rapidly turning into an abandoned slum. The homeless use to be made up mostly of alcoholics, people suffering from mental illness, and a small few that for one reason or another were forced or chose to live on the streets. The new homeless are families. Unemployment benefits keep getting extended but that cannot go on forever. The world is looking at our mounting debt and the fact that we are acting as if it does not exist. If our bonds are down rated, those that hold them (mostly retirees) will find that they can get full value for them. Besides the new bonds will require higher interest rates and since the US has been funding its debt with short term paper, we basically are building up variable rate mortgage on the nation.
The conservatives are wrong when they say we are passing this mess on to the next generation. This economic catastrophe will befall this generation and those of the future.
As for whether or not you are a believer, you should know that the Bible is one of the best books on economics you will ever find. In Due. 15:8 (I think its 15:8) God tells Israel not to borrow from other nations. IN Lev. Due., and Proverbs, God sees diverse weights and measures as an abomination, which means He dispises this as much as He does murder, adultury, homosexuality, child abuse, etc. Diverse weights and measures are a stench in His nostrils. Money is a measure of value. It is suppose to be a store of value. How can a monetary system function as either when a Small Group of men can create it to infinity at will.
If you ever want to read an interesting book on how OUR corrupt system and the banking interest have created so much harm read, CONFESSIONS OF AN ECONOMIC HIT MAN by John Perkins or the earlier work by Smedley Butler’s WAR IS A RACKET. BTW here is a little background on Smedley:
“Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940), nicknamed “The Fighting Quaker” and “Old Gimlet Eye”, was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps and, at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. During his 34 years of service, Butler was awarded 16 medals, five of which were for heroism. He is one of only 19 people to be twice awarded the Medal of Honor, one of three to be awarded a Marine Corps Brevet Medal and a Medal of Honor, and the only person to be awarded the Brevet Medal and a Medal of Honor for two different actions.” Dwight Eisenhour warned of the Military Industrial Complex and part of that complex is the banking system.
Without the banks and all the funny money created during the early part of the 20th century, World War I would never have been possible. When you read the detailed history of how the war started (I’m not talking about the generally accepted text book history) you will note that there were powerful financial institutions that wanted the war for profit. WWI has to be the most unnecessary war in history, and its aftermath led to WWII. The banksters funded the Bolsheviks who overthrew the Kerensky government. It was a coup not a revolution. When you think about it, 100 millions of people have died due in large part to a banking system that has no heart and seeks only gain.
So my frustration with people, especially Christians, who continue to support this corrupt system is my only excuse for my abusive language. But you see, I have seen the misery caused close up and personal. I know what happens when a government promises utopia for the people then delivers a perfect HELL.
We will know if I am right within the next 3 to 5 years.
When I say I am prepared for the comming collapse of the US dollar, I mean that I am prepered to actually prosper in the crisis. I’ve positioned myself to do well under any circumstances and I plan on protecting my family and my loved ones. HOPE TOU WILL DO THE SAME.
kash:”You see “confiscatory taxes” as an infringement of your freedom, I do not. The TVA took hundreds of acres from my family back in the 70s even though my family didn’t want to sell. They paid them for it, some of the family claims not enough, but the family has done well financially from that money where it was invested.” What on earth does eminent domain have to do with taxes? I mentioned my sister’s step daughter who had to pay an extortion of $90,000 to build a house on property she owned. You family received money for their property. In most cases of eminent domain the person is generally overpaid for their property. If the City of Miami decided to take my mother’s commercial property under eminent domain, she would get at least $550,000, something that property was never worth.
I can’t discuss anything with you. I don’t know why but you seem to go off on these tangents that make no sense.
As for your comment, “You see “confiscatory taxes” as an infringement of your freedom, I do not.” what difference does it make. Someone could say they see nothing wrong with setting dogs on fire and does that make it right. Good heavens woman, your statement smacks of the worldview that there is no absolute truth or good and evil…everything is subjective. Confiscating the hard earned fruits of ones labor is theft even if it is done by the government. The Cuban people live in virtual slavery. They own nothing, everything belongs to the state. YOu may think it fine, but what or who made you god? If you want to give everything you own to the state that is your right BUT IT IS NOT YOUR RIGHT to advocate that the state take from others to redistribute wealth. And by the way the wealth is being redistributed to the Banksters that brought the system to its knees and they are not finished.
I had better stop as I am really trying to be more Christian like.
Notice how kash ignored this little story I posted in #89: “Economists: Another Financial Crisis on the Way
Nonpartisan Group Led by Nobel Winner Calls for Stronger Financial Reforms”
I wonder if MattF will bother to respond, afterall this comes from a Nobel Prize winner and was published by ABC business. I guess the reason kash chose to ignore it and the other one I listed in that message is that she could not dismiss them due to the sources. The second story was in USA Today…hmmm ABC and USA Today….fairly mainstream I would say.
kash and MattF also failed to respond to the Huffington Post video, an organization that leans to the LEFT. However, whenever Paul mentions Gary Demar, kash is quick to dismiss anything said by this man. Gary is suddenly accused of being an ideologue.
Why is it kash, that you have yet to respond to any of the evidence I have provided that proves Keynesian economics, in the end leads to total failure of the system? This was from an article I referenced that appeared in the UK Times, again not exactly a right wing extremist rag.
Please tell me why you ignore all these references I provide?
Oh and by the way, isn’t it interesting that bankruptcy laws were changed in the creditors favor in 2005, just as the credit bubble was getting ready to pop. Does anyone out there think for a minute that the Banksters that engorged themselves with cash by providing easy credit might possibly have seen this crisis coming and decided it was time to lobby the government to protect them? Hmmmm and I thought the government was suppose to work for the people and not special interest. Oh that only happens in MattF’s and kash’s fantasy world.
(Credit Default Swaps are what Brooksley Born tried to regulate and was driven from office in the Clinton Administration. Times were great back then and the money was rolling everywhere, yet the party was planting the seeds of our destruction, which is what we are now witnessing.
The Credit Default Swaps will attack state after state until the US dollar rolls under the previous lows as a result.
What the CDS gang takes no note of is what they are doing to the heartbeat of America or any of their other victims.)
Up to 5,200 LA schools workers could face layoffs
By JACOB ADELMAN | Posted: March 2, 2010 5:25
The Los Angeles Unified School District’s board voted Tuesday to send notices of possible layoffs to nearly 5,200 teachers and other workers while urging union leaders to negotiate concessions that could make some of the cuts unnecessary.
The Board of Education members who spoke at the hearing stressed they were unanimously authorizing the notices to meet a state deadline and hoped many of the cuts to the nation’s second-largest school district’s work force could be avoided.
The state’s education code requires school districts to notify teachers by March 15 if they may not have jobs the following school year.
“What we’re voting on today can be reversed, can be mitigated, and we must do that,” board member Richard Vladovic said.
The school board laid off more that 2,000 workers last year as part of a series of measures to address a persistent budget gap, which also included increasing class sizes and eliminating music and arts programs.
http://www.nctimes.com/news/state-and-regional/article_43f5aa7d-74b8-50b9-a608-9e7530635f97.html
Of course in kash’s world everything is just hunky dorey…at least that is what she said when I asked her how Keynesian economics was working for her. Oh and by the way, IBM is laying off another 2000 workers in the US and transferring those jobs to Asia. I think that leaves them with about 100,000 in the US and 300,000 abroad. How can we have a consumer based economy if there are no jobs? Good question. I got an idea let’s tax and regulate business even more, then they will create more jobs. And while we are at it let’s blow the US dollar to hell. The economic chaos will certainly lead to improvements in the economy. Sounds like a plan to me.
Mike post 93,
Hello again Mike[smile]!
Perfection is a relative ideal. Even Jesus Christ himself had to bath, go the the bathroom, scratch itches, fart, and pick out eye boogers in the morningtime, you know[grin]. Whether you all believe it about one another or not, you each believe yourselves to be Christians, being Christians in the best ways that you think you all can be in your own individual ways as the complications of life will allow you to be. Of course “the flesh” is strong….you exist in a universe of it as a product of it. But surely as brothers and sisters of Christ you can all try and find at least one little thing to agree with each other or support each other on. I’d like to imagine the fantasy that despite your differences, even people who seem as oppossed as Paul and Kash, will one day embrace one another within Christian Heaven. But watching you all bicker here and throw out comments of one another loving the “darkness more that the light” and call each other idiots[So, ARE we allowed to call other posters idiots now? Because I've been holding back with some people[grin].] Soooo Easily… makes this seem unlikely, which just make you all seem just like everybody else in the world, instead of a people who have great spiritual truths to share and liberate other nonChristians with.
Thank you for the book recommendations. I shall add it to my lists. I expext to proper through whatever hardships this country suffers throu as well,…but that’s only because my lifestyle is not very much different from what I imagine it may be should your predicted catastrify..catastrafi…catas-should things go bad with our society as a whole.
Kash:”Oh, and by the way, nothing I’ve written since coming back to this site has been from Sojourners.” I know, but it’s the same ideas and thought’s. If you go to the Communist party of the USA web site it is just about the same thought’s and ideas that they aspouse.
You said “Also, remember, government is a THING made up of PEOPLE. Government (the thing) can only be secular by definition, because it is a worldly thing.” Even you understand that government is made up of people and they can’t be separated from what they believe, every person approaches an ethical norm with a prior commitment to some fundamental interpretive principle. No one is commitmentless. No one approaches anything in a neutral way. Our founders understood this very well that’s why I asked MattF the question the way I did to see his resonse, because it tell’s people alot about a person how the see things. This is supposed to be a republic like the founders established. And I post articles from AV because I often times don’t have the time to write, but when I post the articles why not try debating the substance of the article instead of going off on some AV or Gary Demar rant. I actually read the Bible more than I read the articles from AV, after all I believe in going to the source material for my answers.
Here is an article from Bojidar Marinov on private property:
Classical Liberalism and Objectivism can’t defend private property on ethical grounds. They defend it on historical, pragmatic, linguistic grounds, etc., but they don’t give a defense of he private property as ethical in itself. In all their views private property appeared long after man appeared, and is a later development. Therefore, it is not “natural” to man, that is, it is not part of his “natural state.” It is not sacred, Ludwig von Mises said, and thus he declared the impossibility of defending it on ethical grounds.
Unfortunately, there were others who started from the same philosophical presuppositions: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. And unlike Dietze, Mises, or Rand, Marx and Engels were logical and consistent with their presuppositions: If private property was external to human nature, then it was alien to human nature. If mankind is to return to its “natural state,” it must abolish the source of all alienation and suffering: private property. Marx and Engels took the philosophical separation of property from human nature that the defenders of natural law upheld and developed practical ideology consistent with it. That ideology looked monstrous, unnatural, ugly, and it was monstrous, unnatural, and ugly. But it was logically and intellectually consistent, and it won the day, and it is still winning the day. What Dietze, Mises, and Rand lamented-the decline of property rights-was nothing but the predictable result of the superior logical consistency of Marxism.
There is only one ideology that defends private property on ethical grounds: Christianity, with its Biblical worldview, its doctrine of the creation of man in the image of God, and its doctrine of the moral superiority of the Law of God to any man-made laws.
Dietze got it right at the start: Property is an ethical institution, and first and foremost an ethical institution. It can’t be anything else, it can’t be defended on any other ground, any other ground is sand, and it will eventually collapse under the assault of the opponents of private property.
Then Dietze went in a completely wrong direction, philosophically. So did Mises. So did Rand. In order to defend property, we must declare its sacredness. We must declare its intrinsic goodness. And we must declare its naturalness. If it is not sacred, if it is not intrinsically good, and if it is not part of human nature-as opposed to external to human nature-property is only an expedient tool to be disposed of at will. If it is so, we have no recourse against those that want to confiscate our property in the name of expediency or of “return to nature.”
And the only way to declare its sacredness, goodness, and naturalness is to accept the Bible’s claim that man was created an owner, and that he owned private property from the very beginning of his created existence. Humans did not develop the concept of property, nor did it evolve in result of man’s praxis or interaction. Property was inextricably part of man’s existence in the Garden, and there is no way to define man as a being without property.
That view of property as being inextricably part of the very nature of man is reflected in the Ten Commandments. The same law code that protects man’s life protects his property too-in the Eighth and the Tenth Commandments. We can’t define man without his life; in the same way, we cannot define man without his property. His life is an “ethical institution,” it is sacred, in the same way, his property is an “ethical institution,” it is sacred.
This definition of man as a being that naturally has life and property is not a mere philosophical assumption; it flows from the very nature of objective reality because God Himself is a Proprietor. In the Third Commandment-which corresponds to the Eighth in the first five Commandments-God declares limits to man’s use of His name. God is not a remote being. He owns everything, including the breath from our mouth, and we are not allowed to use that breath in a way that violates God’s name. Using God’s name in an inappropriate way was as heavy a crime as worshipping other gods, and violating His property was a crime against the Person of God. In the same way, Biblically, violating a man’s property was a crime against the person of man.
It is no wonder, then, that the idea of sacred property rights originated with Christianity, and it developed as Christianity developed doctrinally and worked out its doctrines in practice. Even as early as the 4th century Bishop Ambrose declared to Emperor Theodosius the theological connection between God’s property and a private man’s property. When he was commanded by the Emperor, “Surrender the Basilica,” Ambrose replied:
It is not lawful for me to surrender it nor good for you, Emperor, to receive it. By no right can you violate the house of a private person. Do you think that a house of God can be taken away from Him? . . . If you hope for a long reign, submit yourself to God.
Notice the argument: The house of a private person is just as inviolable as is the House of God. In a remarkable early defense of property rights, Ambrose didn’t hesitate to declare: “By no right!,” and he made a connection that the Bible made from the very beginning. Had Ambrose wanted to defend property rights on the basis of natural law, he would have been as helpless as Dietze, Mises, or Rand. But his firm stand on the theological foundation of property made Theodosius yield and repent.
The “evolution” of property rights was only observable in the Christian West in the last 1500 years. Moreover, it was not an independent event: It followed the “evolution” of the doctrines of Christianity, as Christian thinkers studied the Bible and applied it to their theory and practice. The “Renaissance” in the 12th and 13th centuries, the Scholastic revolution, contributed to the development of private property rights more than anything before.
And of course, the Protestant Reformation, in its return to the pure teachings of the Bible, exalted property rights to the level of a “divine right” for the individual. Contrary to what Mises and Rand believed, capitalism did not create property rights. It was the perfection of the legal concept of property rights by Protestant theologians that created capitalism, and therefore created the modern world. Capitalism did not create property; property created capitalism; and the Bible established property and built a defense perimeter around it, and sanctioned its ethical and economic advance.
Much is said by Classical Libertarians and by Ayn Rand herself about the American Revolution and its great principle of the rights to Life, Liberty, and Property. And yet, one will be pressed hard to find a justification of that belief on any other basis but Christianity. Why would Property be equal in value as a right to Life, if we accept natural law as our foundation? After all, man was man long before he had any property, if one accepts the evolutionist ideas of the believers in natural law. It is only when we lay the Creation account as our foundation that we can add Property to Life as an unalienable right. And therefore, the greatest victory for property rights in the history of mankind-the American Revolution-cannot be understood without its Christian foundations.
Christianity as the only philosophical foundation to property is also the explanation for the decline of property rights in the 20th century. The more Christ is banned from the public discourse, the less His Law-the only foundation for property-has influence over the public actions of men and their political representatives. Modern society still has some notion of property because of its Christian past; in fact, Classical Liberals themselves wouldn’t be able to produce their great works if it wasn’t for the Christian roots of our civilization. They intuitively accept the logical conclusions of the Law of God the importance of the private property rights-while intellectually rejecting its premises. But the removal of Christianity from society has taken its toll; and the decline of all rights, including property rights, is part of that toll. There is only one possible defense of property-ethical defense-and there is only one ideology that supplies both the epistemological foundations and the legal corpus for that defense. That ideology is based on the Biblical worldview. Remove that foundation, and property rights will follow.
Therefore the restoration of property rights can and will start only with the restoration of Christianity to its place of a dominant religion in the West. Only when our law codes, our cultural practices, our economic, political, scientific, scholarly and other fields of society submit to the revelation and the requirements of the Law of God, we will see the property rights truly upheld and defended. Like all other rights, property rights come from God, and they stand or fall with our obedience to God, as a nation under Him.
here is an article from Bojidar Marinov “Can I be a Libertarian Without Christ?”
I must start this article with acknowledgments. I took part in the forming of the Libertarian movement in my native country, Bulgaria. I was co-founder and the first Chairman of the Bulgarian Society for Individual Liberty. As such I have many friends who are libertarian but not Protestant-or not Christian at all. I have the privilege of being close friends with many great people unknown to the American public, but whose names will remain as the pioneers of liberty in that small nation on the Balkans. I have agnostic and atheist friends all over Europe who are committed to the cause of liberty as much as I am; and they have consistently fought under its banner for many years.
My friendship with these great people has been an incredible blessing for me; in fact, I don’t believe any Christian ever was so blessed by such friendship with non-Christians as I am. We had and still have a common enemy-the socialist state and its wicked ideology, and we fought as allies who knew their differences but had the self-control to focus on what is important. Their hearts and their homes were always open for me, and they let me share my faith in Christ freely without a word of reproach. They trusted me, they supported me, they taught me, they were patient with me, and they sacrificed with me for the common cause we had. While I know God is the One who turns the hearts, I am thankful that in His grace He allowed me to have such friends among non-Christians, and not enemies. It is way more than what I deserve.
This article is not a reproach or an argument against them; it is my debt to them. I find it my duty to tell them why I am a Christian Libertarian, and why I cannot be anything else. God forbid that I try to pick a fight with them who are my friends and allies in one of the most important cultural battles of our time. They deserve an open and friendly answer to the above question.
My answer will start with my teenage years when I was introduced to the ideas of individual liberty and freedom. These were not common ideas in a country that had been under Communism for 40-plus years. John Locke, Thomas Paine, Murray Rothbard, Ayn Rand were not exactly authors that the Communist government would allow on the market. I picked up bits and pieces of those ideas from the works of Spinoza (of all men!), a book on US history, and a smuggled copy of Pink Floyd’s The Wall. My own indignation at things I saw every day contributed to it. Not after long, I knew I wanted to be free, free indeed.
My thoughts were well-trained philosophically by my parents so I never succumbed to the temptation to believe that freedom meant being able to do what I wanted. Even at that age I knew what all libertarians know: Freedom has limits, and these limits are ethical in nature.
But before I knew the ethical limits, I needed to know what freedom itself was all about. Where could I find it? I knew it wasn’t in the Marxist ideology-there was no notion of free individuals there. Spinoza couldn’t give it to me with his die-hard determinism. He only introduced me to the idea, showed me the cake and then left me starving. Hegel and Kant avoided the problem like leprosy, and neither Aristotle nor Plato would let the individual man be free.
I grew the suspicion that the philosophers were lying to me; that the greatest problem of philosophy was freedom vs. bondage; and they were unwilling to admit it for they had no solutions. Philosophy is the quest for Truth but what happens when we find that Truth? Is it going to be respectful of our personal freedom? Why would it? Why would an impersonal absolute entity-what the Truth is supposed to be, philosophically-care about our freedom? Take Spinoza himself: How can he reconcile his love for freedom with his determinism concerning Truth? Can we settle for identifying freedom with “necessity of nature,” which is even a scarier notion? Can I act against the necessity of my nature?
Maybe I’d do better if I didn’t expect absolute truths. Surely, if a world of absolutes threatened my freedom, then a world of relativism surely would make me free. Or, would it? But wouldn’t my freedom be only relative in such a world? Was it possible that what was freedom today would be slavery tomorrow? Was it possible that I have fought for one thing and ended up with another? Was it possible that I set out for the Promised Land and ended up in a concentration camp? How would I know in a world of relative truths?
I couldn’t find freedom either way. An ocean of relativity without shores or bottom made the very notion of freedom irrelevant-and indeed made the very notion of me irrelevant. I needed a stable shore to ground my feet on, a solid wall to lean against if I wanted to find my freedom, and yet that stability and solidness could and would limit my freedom to oblivion.
Oh, my friends would say, you don’t need God for the solution. You can join Ayn Rand in assuming objective existence and objective conscience, and your problem is solved. The question of origins is irrelevant to the issue of freedom. The idea of freedom is based on the very nature of existence. We assume existence in an Axiom, and the rest is easy. Who cares how things originate, we only need to postulate that they exist.
Well, defining away the question of origins was a very good solution to my philosophical problem. I could now be an agnostic and still retain my sanity and my quest for freedom. In fact, I did find my freedom: It just existed and I could consciously exercise it. What else did I need?
But I had a new problem, an ethical one. By defining away the origins I defined away the possibility for ethical definitions. Remember the ethical limits I talked about? How could I find those ethical limits if all my thinking started with the simplistic Axioms of Existence and Conscience? What is is what is, and what I know is what I know. How do I derive a system of practical ethics from such simple axioms? Is morality part of existence? Is it “natural” to us? If it is, then whatever I do must be moral. If it isn’t, how do we discern between “natural” and “unnatural” existence? How do I know Howard Roark was right in blasting that building? Only because he felt he had the right? Only because of his personal interpretation of history? And how do I know Ellsworth Toohey was a villain and not a hero? Ayn Rand never answers these questions. She makes us assume the definitions, accept them by faith. And don’t get me wrong, I like Ayn Rand, I am proud to have been her first translator in Bulgarian, and I would do it again if I could. But I can’t overlook the fact that once we axiomatize existence without origins, we must keep axiomatizing every definition-because there is no beginning for anything.
So in addition to the old problem of truth vs. freedom, I had a new one: philosophical vs. ethical. I must jump out of the frying pan of the philosophical quest for truth if I wanted to be free, but I found I would only end up in the fire of disintegrating reality where there was no practical way of discerning right from wrong, or natural from unnatural. Objectively, I could be free in that fire, free without any restraints-exactly what freedom is supposed not to be, ethically.
And then, of course, comes the very practical question of my rights. I know I want to be free, I know that my freedom is ethically limited, and I know that my freedom will require that others be ethically limited, unless I want to surrender my freedom to them. But how do I derive my rights from simple axioms of impersonal reality? Do my rights exist objectively? If yes, why do I have to fight for them, why don’t they just exist of themselves? If no, am I making up new, subjective reality in my brain?
So now I had three things that I desperately wanted but I couldn’t reconcile: Freedom, Ethics, and Justice. And none of the philosophies or philosophers I knew could reconcile them.
When a dear friend of mine shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ with me, he knew nothing of my intellectual struggles. There was one thing that caught my attention that night when he talked to me about his faith: “You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free.” And then Jesus adds: “And if the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed.”
There was the solution to my problem! I was blind to search for an impersonal Truth, an inexorable, merciless entity that holds the universe in an iron grip. And I was blind to search for Freedom that was focused on myself so much that would make the rest of the world irrelevant-and make me irrelevant in the process. Truth was possible to know only if it was itself a Person; and Freedom was possible to have only if it was itself a Person. That Person couldn’t be a mere man-or I would be in slavery. He must be a god, or rather, God, the Creator of the Universe. And if the Bible was true, then my problems had one reason: I was a stranger to God, and thus I was a stranger to Freedom, Ethics, and Justice. I had to come back to Him, through the redemption He provided in Jesus Christ. Only then I had . . . everything.
If He was the Creator, He was the Truth. Knowing Him, I would know the Truth. He was Freedom too: He created my very nature and He knew what I should do to be in harmony with my real nature. And He was Justice for He gave me the rules for a just society that has liberty and justice for all. What all the philosophers wanted but couldn’t find, He had it, and He was it.
Therefore I couldn’t be a libertarian without Christ. I tried, and it was impossible-philosophically and ethically. It was self-contradictory, it was against the very nature of things, and it was believing in a set of assumptions that had no discernible connection with reality or with each other. Only in Christ I had them all brought together in a coherent whole. And only in Christ did it make sense to be willing to die for your freedom-without Him death was the ultimate judge of things, and slavery was preferable to facing death. “Give me liberty or give me death” was folly in a world without Christ-but now it is divine wisdom in Him.
There are two main arguments I hear from my non-Christian libertarian friends.
The first one is: “How could a slave of God be free?” Indeed, Bojidar, if you self-consciously submit to another being, how is this freedom? How is this different from being a slave of men?
This argument misses the fact that the same word “slave” has different meanings in both cases. Let me use a different example to explain:
“I have a daily need of food and water.”
“I have a daily need of heroine in my veins.”
We have the same words: “daily need.” But they have different moral meanings. In the first sentence they mean “healthy condition.” In the second sentence they mean “addiction.” What makes the moral difference? It is what comes after them. The nature of food and water on one hand, and heroine on the other make all the difference between the meanings.
Same with the word “slave” when used with God and man respectively. If God was like man, then there would be no difference. But why would I believe in a God who is in essence no different from a man? Would that solve my problems above? But if God is what He claims He is, then He is so different in nature from man that “slave of God” would be entirely different from “slave of man.” And therefore “freedom from man” would be different from “freedom from God,” to the point that slavery could be defined as “freedom from God.”
The Founders of the United States of America knew this truth perfectly. I am not discovering anything new here. It is no mere coincidence that ideas of liberty originated, and were perfected and applied in practice only in Christendom, and nowhere else.
The second argument is: “How can you be free if you obey someone else’s will?” What about free choice? Can’t we do anything we want with our own body, or our own property? What about the choice of a woman to abort her baby? How is obeying God’s Law freedom?
This argument misses a greater reality: Ethical limits. Remember, “anything we want” is not the definition of “freedom.” A person who wants to sell himself in slavery is not free; and no definition of freedom can justify what Hitler and Stalin wanted to do with the resources they had. The definition of freedom is to be able to act according to your true nature. And your true nature is defined by the One who created you-or it is not defined at all. Is it possible that you want to do things with your body and your property that come from your twisted nature instead from your real nature? Even non-Christian libertarians understand that not everything a person wants is necessarily “free” or “moral.”
A person can be a slave when they obey their own whims as much as when they obey someone else’s will. It is ethical limits that define the realm of freedom, not whims and desires. And since we find clearly defined ethical limits only in the Law of the Creator, therefore we can find clearly defined and real freedom only in Christ.
To summarize, I cannot be a true Libertarian without Christ. I cannot fight for liberty unless I know what liberty is and where it comes from. Outside of Christ any notion of individual freedom is lost either to a frigid web of inexorable necessity or to an ocean of relativity without shores. Only in Christ I can have true Freedom, and the Truth that gives it meaning.
If I decide to avoid the questions of the origin of my individual freedom, I can’t build a practical ethical framework for it. I can’t know what the legitimate limits of my freedom are, and therefore I can’t know what my rights-the legitimate limits of the freedom of others-are. Only in Christ I can have clear understanding of those ethical limits for any practical purposes.
Being a slave of God of doing God’s will does not destroy my freedom. To the contrary, doing God’s will is to my liberty what eating and drinking is to my body. Only by being obedient to Christ I have my liberty nourished and renewed. Everything else follows from it.
Lastly, without my hope in Christ, death will be the final judge of all, not life. In a Christ-less world life in slavery would be preferable to freedom in death, and therefore a true Libertarian in such a world is by necessity a fool. I don’t want to be a fool.
John, Your response is well writting and a very accurate observation. We can all use criticism, especially from people with different worldviews (Christian / Secular). Just one note, Jesus is God. During His earthly ministry he took human form, which is why he had to deal with the everyday duties that every human accepts as part of life. Only by becoming a man could He suffer and pay for our sins. Contrary to what most people believe his main suffering was not the flogging, the humiliation, or the cross itself; it was bearing the “sins of the world” upon His shoulders and separation from the Father.
Now as for calling people “idiots”, I believe, more often than not, I use the term “useful idiot.” If I am not mistaken this term was coined by the Communist in the early stages of their coup to label British and American citizens, primarily these two, that supported Communist ideology. Today a “useful idiot” is anyone that supports a regime, ideology, movement, etc. that will do them and their families great harm. The best analogy I can think of is: “Giving a neighbor a gun as present, who has stated numerous times he is intent on killing you and your whole family.”
As for surviving the coming financial / energy / geopolitical crisis, I am sure most people will come through it alive. So it is not the end of the world. Life will go on and renew itself and maybe we can build something better. Mankind usually does. But mankind has a habit of repeating the same mistakes. Solomon, in Ecc.1-3, wrote that what has been will be again, and what is now will also repeat…”there is nothing new under the sun.” George Santanya said, “Those that forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat its mistakes.”
Since man has been on the planet…or should I say since civilization began, every time governments have debased their money (clipping coins, adding base metals while removing precious metals) or adopted fiat money, the outcome has ALWAYS BEEN THE SAME. Our founding fathers knew this quite well since they had all experienced the GREAT INFLATIONS created first by the colonial governments when they experimented with paper money and finally during the Revolution when Congress adopted the Continental dollar. One of the major reasons for the collapse of the Roman Empire was its debasement of its coinage, which led to economic chaos, rebellion, and final desolution.
I’ve seen what big government in the name of “doing the will of the people or what is best for the people,” eventually leads to and it isn’t pretty.
One of my favorite poems is a meditation by John Donne:
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
Maybe if more of us lived this the world would be a better place. Yes we are quick to come to aid of people during disasters such as the Chilean and Haitian earthquakes, but we don’t seem to care much about what our government is doing to support regimes that oppress their own people. Then we sit back and wonder why so many people hate us….aren’t we the good guys.
I worked with a man that had immigrated from Keyna. He told me that he dispised the members of the Black Caucus in our Congress. When I asked him why, he told me, “because they come to Africa to eat and socialize with the dictators that oppress us, then go back to America so your country can send them more money to make our lives miserable.” Hmmm….this seems to fit the basic theme of Smedley Butler’s and John Perkin’s book.
One more point about Jesus before I forget. As a man He was kind and gentle, but never short on words that stung like a bee. He called the Pharisees hypocrits, sons of Satan, a brood of vipers, murders of the prophets, etc. This of course after He first tried to reason with them. At times he even called his disciples “dense” and at one point suggested that Peter was possessed by Satan. The Bible does not tell us the emotions behind Jesus’s “offensive” I prefer to say direct language, but I suspect he had tried reasoning and it didn’t work so maybe using direct language that described their behavior might bring them to the truth, “the light.” Some of the Pharisees got the message, but most did not.
What is most interesting is that there was one group of people that Jesus did not even bother to teach, at least the Bible doesn’t reference any such activity on His part. No, this group He went after with a whip and destroyed their property. These were of course the “money changers”, the BANKSTERS of His day. As the God Man, Jesus must have known that these people have no soul and thus have no guilt. Their only obsession is gain caring not what havoc or pain they may cause.
So when I tell kash, “you can’t be this stupid,” I am not calling her stupid. I am telling her that, in my opinion derived from my observations, she is choosing a belief system that will certainly bring misery and pain down on her fellow man. Notice how she has not commented on any of the stories now appearing in the mainstream that support my conclusions, yet she is quick to berate Paul on his sources. She wants to remain blind to the truth. She even said that things were just fine in Ala., her home state. I believe Alabama is better financial conditions that most states, but that is not saying much these days as more and more states are near bankrupt. Right next door Miss., is havig to furlough many of its government workers. In every state tax revenues are down, which is the real indicator of economic activity, and so far there is no relief in sight.
This depression began, according to the government, in Dec. 2007. We are starting on our third year and even with all the government stimulus and bailouts things just seem to be getting worse. One does not need statistics to know this, just look around and talk to people. As bad as things are now we are just in the eye of the storm. The government has managed to keep the system going but only for a while. When the back wall hits, just like a hurricane, we will feel the full fury of the economic crisis.
What will release the eye and send the second half of the financial crisis slamming into the American people? I don’t know but my guess is that it will be tied to a currency crisis whose epicenter is in one of the major currencies of the West (read: US dollar).
Those that tell me, as you did John, I will just weather the storm, don’t really know the nature of this beast. The best analogy I can come up with is, “a person is on the Titanic and a fellow passanger tells him, the ship is sinking get to a life boat. The person responds, ‘I’m not worried, I know how to swim and besides I have this life vest on.” Your lifevest can keep you from drowning but it won’t protect you from hypothermia. Keep warm John.
You put all of us on the Titanic?
The TITANIC?! Of all the God-AWFUL places to be……as if being on a sinking ship wasn’t bad enough, and that it was miles away from anywhere, AND that the water is so cold that it’ll kill me within fifteen minutes..Oh thanks a lot, Mike[grin]. I’m sure I could have survived through your conspiracy theory on Global Warming that involved all of the smartest and most powerful people in the world only caring about lining their pockets and letting the rest of us get[the word rhymes with "chewed"], but comparing it to being on the Titanic turns the whole scenario into such an utterly hopeless situation[do you know what the death toll was?]that I may as well just get cozy, order some drinks and a steak, and listen to the band play until we all drown[Really, you don't even give me enough credit to get on one of the lifeboats[and there weren't enough of those on the ship anyway]or even build a raft out of tables or ANYTHING!].
John, you really do have a way with words, but I did not put you on the Titanic. I used the Titanic as an analogy to let you know that the economic / financial situation in the West is dire and should not be taken lightly.
Go to some of my statements to MattF on the Evolution thread. Check out the 5 minute video on the Huffington Post. Read some of the articles I have referenced. Here is a good one:
The Dominos of Default
John Browne
Posted Mar 5, 2010
The bad news for Greece is that despite some help from abroad, and some attempts at internal reform, investors are still leery of the troubled state. The good news, if you can call it that, is that they will soon have company in the penalty box.
Now that investors have come face-to-face with the reality of sovereign default in the developed world, greater scrutiny will befall those countries with fiscal conditions similar to Greece. The United Kingdom is a cause of great concern, with a debt ratio rapidly approaching Greek levels. The economic challenges facing Britain are aggravated by a Labour government that is pushing the country further toward socialism. As a result, in from mid-2008 to today the pound sterling has lost some 25 percent of its value even against the US dollar. Debt and socialism are a toxic mix for investors.
When I served as a Member of Parliament, under Margaret Thatcher, freedom literally burst upon Britain. We dropped the top rate of income tax from 92 percent to 30 percent (generating far higher tax revenue); abolished foreign exchange controls overnight; and demolished socialist controls by, for example, allowing people the basic freedom to own their own telephones! A wave of enterprises sprung up and Britain once again was referred to as ‘Great,’ without causing wry smiles. Though it may be astounding by today’s standards, we instituted a public debt repayment schedule. Thereafter, sterling soared by almost 100 percent between 1985 and 1995.
Great Britain has, until the present, never experienced more than two successive socialist governments. Today, the Conservatives, who covertly support the surrender of UK sovereignty to the socialist European Union, are seen as offering little alternative to socialist Labour. Despite the appalling economic record of the current Labour government, recent polls show a serious risk of a hung parliament after this summer’s general election. Suddenly, investors face the real prospect of a fourth socialist government. This specter, combined with the massive debt and misspending of the past three administrations, has led to serious out-flows from sterling and UK government ‘gilt-edged’ bonds, or ‘Gilts.’
As in the United States, the economic problems encumbering the UK and most of Western Europe are deep-rooted. They stem from many decades of dependence on monetary expansion to ‘paper over’ fiscal irresponsibility. GDP growth has been obtained by government subsidies of consumer demand, financed by debilitating taxation of productive enterprise, unimaginable public debts and massive currency debasement.
Alas, it is also becoming painfully clear to investors that, unlike the past, the problems are now too big for the same old government remedies.
Whereas the recent first wave of recession caused individual people and companies to face bankruptcy, the looming second wave threatens entire governments. Who can bail out governments if a number of them default simultaneously? The IMF is a sort of ‘central bank of central banks,’ but it is largely backstopped by the United States. Will China, Germany, or other creditor states be willing to assume the role of global guarantor? If so, what will this mean for the sovereignty and competitiveness of the old pillars of the Atlantic?
Greece is a small economy. But its debt problems highlight fault-lines undermining the euro, and with it the socialist dream of a United States of Europe. Today, Greek ten-year bonds sell at yields north of 6 percent, nearly 300 basis points higher than similar German, Danish, or French sovereign bonds.
While Britain’s debt has become a cause for some concern, investors have drawn hope that the Conservatives would carry the coming election and restore some semblance of fiscal order. However, recent polling has exposed the risk of a hung parliament. Suddenly, the previously unthinkable notion of a British default crossed into the realm of possibility. Ten-year British Gilts sold off to yield above four percent, a significant premium above the country’s Continental rivals.
In other words, the free market has priced in a loss of the UK’s prized ‘triple A’ credit rating, while the perennially laggard and politicized rating agencies merely issued warnings.
As we have said before, the United Kingdom, as one of the two main bulwarks of modern finance, is the figurative ‘canary in the coal mine.’ It is my belief that just as Greece preceded the UK, Britain will precede the United States along the dark and dangerous shaft of excessive debt. Although the United States is nearly five times larger than the UK, our financial difficulties are in nearly the same proportion. In many ways, problems in the U.S. may be more intractable.
Although the Federal Reserve is actively holding down the short end of the yield curve to near zero, 10-year notes are currently yielding more than 3.6 percent. If the Fed were to cease purchasing Treasuries, or the rating agencies were to become realistic, the free market would drive the 10-year into dangerous territory.
History is littered with examples showing that socialism kills enterprise. The UK and EU are largely socialist. The US is becoming increasingly so. This political trend, coinciding (unsurprisingly) with a major recession, invites catastrophe.
It is one thing for prudent, rich states like Germany to bail out small states like Greece. But few states have the ability or the will to bail out financial giants like the US, EU, or UK. If such a maneuver were attempted, it would surely drag the entire world into depression – and I don’t take the Chinese or the Germans to be that foolish. Absent a reasonable avenue for rescue, we are increasingly likely to see these formerly steady giants topple. If you’re stuck in their shadow, look out.
We have long alerted readers to the possibility and even likelihood of sovereign defaults. Once a key domino falls, collapse can be devastatingly sudden. Those heeding our warnings should be wary of socialism wherever it lurks. Be glad that darkness strikes first on the other side of the Atlantic, but be wary that are close behind.
John Browne works for Peter Schiff, who is now running for the US Senate from Conn. Do a web search on “Peter Schiff was right video.” This man has been spot on and I have read all of his books. Imagine you are an American living in the Virginia during the 1850s. Periodically you read of troubles in other parts of the country but they seem so far away. Yes there are some radical elements in both the north and south but surely our leaders will find a reasonable solution. Could you have imagined that within 10 years over 1/2 million of your countrymen would be dead and half the land laying in ruins. What if your farm had been the sight of one of the battles….could you imagine everything you had worked for destroyed and maybe loved ones killed? I know I probably wouldn’t have dreamed such a scenario.
Who in 1927, when everything was going great in America could believe that in 5 years unemployment would reach 25% and the nation would be in the grips of the Great Depression? Imagine being a British subject in the 1930s. Could you imagine that within a few years your country would be fighting alone for its life? Or, how about a Frenchman, secure that his nation had the greatest army in all of Europe and the Maginot line was impregnable; could you imagine being overrun in 6 weeks and then ruled by the Nazis for the next 5 years resulting in the devastation of your country.
Yet in hindsight all these events should have been easily seen. Why is it that people continually believe that what has happened in the past cannot happen to them? In every example I gave you the stories of the day set the trend. That is always the case. Look around you, read the news, what are the stories today then see if you can determine what the trend will be. I say this because you are my fellow man and I care about you and your loved ones. Reading some of your posts, you seem to be a real decent sort. All I am doing is sounding the alarm but few are listening. Others with a bigger megaphone are doing what they can, but few are listening. Throughout history there have been individuals that tried to warn their countrymen of impending danger. General Sherman as the south was seceding warned them that this war would be a terrible thing and the North was better prepared. Col Billy Mitchell warned in 1924 that airpower would decide the next war. He criticize the military experts of the day and even said that some Sunday Morning our Pacific Fleet would be attacked by the Empire of Japan. No one listened.
I read the most detailed book ever written about the attack on Pearl Harbor. The book, At Dawn we Slept, by Gordon Prange details how divisions within our intellegence system prevented us from figuring out what the Japanese were up to. Then he warned, “Those divisions still exist today and the lack of coordination between the different intellegence agencies still puts us at risk of another Pearl Harbor.” The morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when I heard of the terrorist attacks, the first thing that went through my mind after I got over the shock were Gordon Prange’s warnings.
Who would have ever dreamed before Sept. 11, 2001 that the worst attack on US soil by a foreign power was at hand? Yet the headlines of the 90s were loud and clear; the radical Islam had been at war with America for over a decade. The news events set the trend and we ignored it.
Just read some of the articles I have posted. Listen to the Huffington Post interview. I don’t know about you but the picture I get is frightening. But less so for me. I am prepared for the worst and pray it will never happen. But each passing day I am less and less hopeful. My prayers are for my country and for my brothers and sisters in Christ.
I know Mike. my last post to you was said in jest[smile]. But seriously, if you think that being on the Titanic is a fair analogy to the situation that you’re describing then…it really DOES sound completely hopeless.
I have read your conversations with Matt F. within the other site. I read everything, everywhere. Your scenario sounds like that movie with Mel Gibson called “The Patriot”[Have you ever seen it? It's a...I guess you could lable it, a "historical action drama", and it's pretty good in my opinion.], and yes, I can completely understand that kind of a scenario. There are bandits here in the swamp from time to time that try such things to people who live in the remote places. I call them “pirates of the land”.
Thank you for thinking of me as a real decent sort. I try to be to the best of my abilities. Well, most of the time anyway.
“She even said that things were just fine in Ala., her home state. I believe Alabama is better financial conditions that most states, but that is not saying much these days as more and more states are near bankrupt.” Where I am in Alabama didn’t boom, and thus we didn’t bust. But I never said Alabama was just fine. We’ve got all the same problems everyone else does, more or less. I simply said I was doing fine.
Luke 13:31 At that time some of the Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, “Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you.” See? Even among the Pharisees some meant well, and wanted to protect Jesus.
32: He replied, “Go tell that fox, ‘I will drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.’ 33 In any case, I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day – for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!” Politics and politicians can have no effect ultimately on the plans of God. What matters is how we treat each other in the meantime.
kash:”Politics and politicians can have no effect ultimately on the plans of God. What matters is how we treat each other in the meantime.” But we as Christians know that God uses evil to punish his children. That little trip into captivity was not a very pleasant event for the Jews of that day, and you can be sure that those that had remained faithful suffered right along with those that had rebelled against God.
Now to address your comment further. It seems like you have dropped your defense of Keynesian economics and the wisdom of allowing a small group of men to have the ENORMOUS power of deciding the money supply. You have said nothing about the video I posted from the Huffington Post or any of the other articles I mentioned. Do you agree or disagree with the articles and video? Have you watched the PBS special on Brooksley Born? I think you can find it on the internet. IF not you can at least take a few minutes to read up on this courageous lady (a democrat appointed by Clinton) that fought the powers of that administration in order to prevent what we are going through today. Speaking of Clinton, are you willing to admit that at least some of that great economy was just an illusion created by easy credit, wild speculation, and the creation of a stock market bubble, or will you remain a loyal Democrat no matter what they do to the nation. The same goes for anyone that is a loyal Republican. I tore up my card years ago.
kash: ” But I never said Alabama was just fine. We’ve got all the same problems everyone else does, more or less. I simply said I was doing fine.”
My question, “How is Keynesian economics working our for you?” was not meant to be taken personally but how is it working for your state and community. I was implying that Keynesianism is not working. Remember when you told us that what Obama was doing would stimulate the economy then you went through all the Keynesian reasons why it would work. I posted an article where the author states that Keynesian Economics would first fail in the land of his birth. I’ve been saying it for years, “KEYNESIAN ECONOMICS IS DOOMED TO TRASH HEAP OF HISTORY.” Now I cannot fault John M. Keynes completely. His system was doomed not because it was a bad idea, but because it was not practicle. Sort of like Marxism, which sounds really great but when you impose the human element the whole thing will never work. But I’m not here to give a lecture on J.M. Keynes. Suffice it to say that his ideas were good on paper but would never work in the real world due to man’s nature. I can understand his short comings. He was a good atheist and believed in the goodness of man unlike us Christians that believe what God says, “who can know man’s heart?” Free market capitalism, which is Biblical, allows for free and open competition, which spreads the power around to the entire society. Government is not to determine the winners and losers, but to act as a fair mediator and punish those that would abuse the system. That’s scripture.
John: “But seriously, if you think that being on the Titanic is a fair analogy to the situation that you’re describing then…it really DOES sound completely hopeless.”
There were survivors on the Titanic, just as in the end the US prevailed over the Empire of Japan. Many Jews survived the holocaust and Britian was victorious in preventing a German invasion. The sad part of this history is that it was all so unnecessary…..the suffering of those that perished and even those that survived.
My warnings of the coming storms, actually they are already here we just caught the front wall, is not to scare people to paralysis but to scare them to action. The threat is real….it is a real and present danger. There are ways to protect oneself and loved ones, but it does not entail expecting the government to “fix things.” What was once considered prudent and safe, saving money in an insured bank account, Certificates of Deposit, and US government bonds, is now the riskiest investment of all. At least one should offset risk by putting 30% minimum in gold / silver.
When we buy health insurance we are offsetting the risk of serious illness. Life insurance offsets the financial risk of death of the bread winners. Car insurance offsets the risk an accident. Homeowners insurance offsets the risk of storm / fire damage / theft / liability. I’ve said this a million times, “Gold is not an investment, it is insurance against currency devaluation.” A wise person offsets risk, especially when the threat of an event rises. A person living in the mountains of Virginia may not see the need to carry hurricane insurance but someone living in the Florida Keys. would be foolish to be without it.
John: “Your scenario sounds like that movie with Mel Gibson called “The Patriot”[Have you ever seen it? It’s a…I guess you could lable it, a “historical action drama”, and it’s pretty good in my opinion.” Yes I saw the movie and it is one of my favorites. Did you know that the weapons used by Gibson were handmade the same way they had been made 200+ years ago. I can’t remember the shop that built them, but Gibson was so impressed that he order a couple for himself. He was actually trained in how people of that era would use their firearms.
One of my favorite lines from the movie was when Gibson was addressing the South Carolina assembly and said, “What difference does it make if we are government by one tyrrant 3000 miles away or 3000 tyrants 1 mile away.”
We believe our freedoms are guaranteed because we live in a democratic Republic. It is a false sense of security.
FYI: More proof that one should allocate some assets to precious metals and commodity related investments: (“*** to highlight important aspects of this article. Note China’s move to Free Market capitalism and their rise as an economic powerhouse, while the US slides further into a Socialist / fascist state. If you are an investor pay close attention to what this man says about Financial TV / media; he is 100% correct.)
Chinese Government to Citizens: Buy Gold and Silver
No longer favoring the US dollar, the Chinese government increased its holdings of gold from 600 tonnes in 2003 to 1,054 tonnes in 2009. This month, rumors began circulating that the Chinese government may indeed purchase from the IMF 191.3 tonnes of gold. While the government has denied this rumor, China Investment Corp. has purchased positions in gold miners such as Canadia’s Kinross Gold, Gold Fields of South Africa, and AngloGold Ashanti.
To further fuel gold investment, the government began pushing its citizens to buy gold in September of 2009. In addition, China just introduced its own silver bars as an investment, and China Central Television is running campaigns to push the citizenry into gold and silver investments. This could mean a new swell of demand and higher prices.
New Steps in Precious Metal Ownership
Besides the new ad campaign, China is taking larger and larger steps to solidify its wealth with a huge stake in precious metals, going so far to encourage private ownership. ***The Ministry of Land and Resources has also rewritten mining laws to encourage existing mining operations**** to look for gold and silver both in the mainland and overseas. This move, coupled with a ban on silver exports, makes it clear that China wants its hand in the oncoming precious metals rush.
A New Exchange
****
China has even gone so far to create the Shanghai Gold Exchange, which allows anyone to trade gold in the open market with very little government intervention;**** this is a dramatic shift from the historic communist leanings of the Chinese government. This new market could open ownership of gold to a growing middle class that saves as much 40% of its personal income, creating a force to be reckoned with in the international and domestic gold markets.
China’s Impact on Metals
Though we have known for the last few years that China’s government is seeking to minimize its exposure to foreign currencies, especially the US dollar, it is now clear that the country wants to mobilize its citizenry to do the same. This couldn’t be more bullish for both gold and silver, as a new generation of Chinese savers is sure to enter the market place, driving up the price of metals and spreading gold and silver as an investment well beyond government controlled coffers.
Don’t Discount the Chinese
Historically, the Chinese have exerted very little impact on speculative investments; however, times are certainly changing. ***As China’s trade surplus grows due to its enormous manufacturing base***, the amount of money both in the hands of government and in the hands of the citizenry is sure to follow suit. Just recently, ***a new class of Chinese citizens clad with personal computers, cell phones and personal transportation is taking a foothold in China, and they are not afraid to invest their immerse wealth where they see fit.***
The Time is Now
While the current ranks of investors choosing to protect themselves with gold and silver remains a very small portion of the total investing class, the ranks are growing – all while the amount of precious metals stagnates. Anyone with a calculator and a basic understanding of economics understands that today’s prices, though multiples higher than a decade ago, are sure to explode, mostly due to the number of investors who want to own gold and silver.
There is no better time to begin establishing a position. Do so before 300 million middle class Chinese citizens begin to stake their claim in what is sure to be a multi-decade bull run in commodity prices.
Don’t Let Analysts Skew Your Metals Portfolios
Every time an investment outperforms much of the market, the entirety of the financial services community reaches in to offer their two cents. We saw this in real estate, the bull run in commodities throughout the early 2000s, and in many high performing investment sectors before these booms.
However, it is important to keep a level head when the pundits and financial commentators start buzzing about the next best investment.
What Analysts’ Projections Really Mean
What do the analysts’ projections mean? Nothing.
Analyst forecasts about a specific investment or security mean virtually nothing about the future returns of a security, commodity or any other investment class. These statements and predictions are released largely for the press value and free advertising large investment banks receive every time they make a forecast about an investment.
If you remember back to the oil bubble, two companies in particular, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase, made a new prediction each and every week as oil went higher. This was done for three reasons: to increase the interest in oil, as well as work as a self-fulfilling prophecy to drive oil prices higher and to bring their company to the main stage of financial commentary with each new release.
Most of their predictions came true, but this wasn’t due to any amazing forecasting on their part. Instead, it was due to the fact that the investment banks were making forecasts that anyone with a chart could plainly see.
Also, each new forecast was rarely more than 10% higher than the previous forecast, allowing the bank to claim it had placed appropriate target prices each time one was reached.
Analysts Lining up in Precious Metals
Ultimately, the oil bubble popped as the economy turned sour, and the last of all predictions was the only one to prove untrue. JP Morgan had been correct all the way to nearly $150 per barrel before it released a ridiculous forecast of $200 per barrel, and it was only weeks later that the oil bubble came crashing down. Of course, the investment banks were already selling to the new interest, and just a few weeks before the bubble burst, most were again short oil, which is a complete 180 from their own forecasting.
Now investment banks are doing just the same with gold, putting out ridiculously low price targets of $1300, which almost anyone with experience in metals knows is still exponentially lower than its inflation adjusted high.
Noise Only
Financial analysts are in the marketplace to make noise to excite investors about the next greatest investment. They’re not there for any meaningful purpose, and most really don’t care which way the investment itself chooses to go. The analysis division is mostly there for positive press, and each time the investment strikes a forecasted target price, the investment bank has the ability to inflate its own ego.
It is important to remember to never get caught up in what analysts are predicting about precious metals because they know little more than the average investor who can read charts and understand economic fundamentals. We can all agree that government spending is out of control, inflation is continuing on, and the underlying fundamentals for precious metals remain strong. With that said, it would be ridiculous not to predict higher metal prices for the long term horizon.
http://www.kitco.com/ind/Lewis/mar042010.html
Some more fuel for the fire as far as what it might mean to be a nation founded upon Christianity:
Have you heard about Martin Ssempra? He’s a pastor in Uganda, and the chief impetus behind a bill that insists that homosexuals should be dead because they are homosexual.
As it is, one can be jailed for up to 14 years in that country for homosexuality; it’s illegal there and in most of sub-Saharan Africa.
When the story of this bill hit the American mainstream media, it caused a few problems for American Evangelicals who believe that a nation should be established on the “Church First”. They attempted to quietly distance themselves, and loudly resented it when cornered and pestered by the media to choose which was right: homosexuality or a carried-away pastor.
Ssempra’s fate seems to have taken a turn for the worse. He has found his rest in the loving arms of gay porn.
Not by being in it or anything, of course. He’s using it as a tool to minister to his flock. According to reports, he went to the Ugandan capital to give a slideshow demonstration of the acts they were advocating capital punishment for.
Then, for some reason, he turned his vitriol toward Obama, saying, “Is this what Obama wants to bring to Africa?”
I don’t agree with everything this Administration, nor do I keep track of it all — but I don’t believe they ever proposed using gay porn as part of foreign relations, did they?
Sarcasm aside, what is the right thing for a nation founded upon Christianity to do under these circumstances? I don’t have the answer; I’m just interested in the discussion.
MattF:”Sarcasm aside, what is the right thing for a nation founded upon Christianity to do under these circumstances? I don’t have the answer; I’m just interested in the discussion.”
We have Constitutional rights. Our rights are not determined by a Church, Christian or otherwise, and our rights are not up for a vote of the majority….that would be a democracy. A democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what they are going to eat for dinner.
According to tradition established by the Marshall court in Marbury vs. Madison case, the Supreme court determines constitutionality of any and all legislation. This does not mean that the court doesn’t get it wrong from time to time; such as the Dred Scott decision or Plessey vs. Ferguson and more recently I believe Roe vs. Wade, but they are all we have at the highest level. Below them are all the lower courts.
The Constitution is silent on homosexuality therefore homosexuals should be allowed to live as they wish so long as they do not violate any of the laws that all of us must abide by. They cannot engage in intercourse in public for example, and marriage continues to be defined as between a man and a woman.
The role of the Christian is to bring people to Christ then disciple the new member. We all come to Christ with our own “demons.” Mine is a temper and a sharp tongue which I find hard to control at times (I was undefeated champion at the dozens all through high school.) I’m getting better but as all of you know the flesh still gets the better of me far too often. As a Christian I should love the sinner but hate the sin. Homosexuality is sin, but I have had friends and acquaintences that were / are homosexual. I do not judge them, but I do judge their lifestyle and witness to them. I do the same for hetersexuals that are without Christ.
Legally, however, they should be free to live as they wish, and I would advocate that their rights be protected.
MattF: “but I don’t believe they (Obama) ever proposed using gay porn as part of foreign relations, did they?
Well yes and no. No they have not advocated for gay porn, at least not that I am aware of. But the Administration wants to end the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding homosexuals. What the Administration advocates is that homosexual military personnel should be free to express their sexuality just as hetersexual military personnel do.
If all of our military were stationed in the US this might not be much of a problem, but given the fact that we have bases all over the world it could trigger some touchy situations. Can you imagine a US military base in an Islamic country and soldiers of the same sex are walking around hand in hand or are seen kissing. In most Islamic countries, if not all of them, open display of any homosexual relationship is strictly forbidden and could be interpreted as “live gay porn.” From that standpoint Martin Ssempra may have a point.
Where is kash?…..like asking where is Waldo? Just wondering if kash has budged one inch on her stance that big government can solve problems and that government should assume responsibility for the individual choices made by the citizens? Her point of view, as I see it, is that some people are unfortunate and need government assistence to make it in life. While I would agree that on the surface this is true the real number of people that “need assistence due to circumstances beyond their control,” is really tiny. We live in a nation that offers the best vehicle for people to move up the socio-economic ladder and that is a free public education. We have even implimented special programs to meet the needs of special children, and yet we have a drop out rate that is a disgrace . We also have community colleges and subsidize student loans for those seeking “the better jobs.”
The bottom line is that the opportunities are there and unless you are severely (mostly mentally) impaired there is little excuse for any American not to make a good life for himself and his family. The formula is simple: 1. Don’t have babies before you are married. 2. Finish at least high school. 3. Don’t get a criminal record.
I submit that it is each person’s responsibility to secure health insurance and establish a retirement program. Medicare, medicade, and Social Security are now being exposed as the greatest Ponzi schemes ever devised by man. The intentions were good and they have helped many, especially the elderly in the previous generation, but they alone would bring down the American economy. It has been government’s involvement in healthcare that has sent prices soaring and is rapidly pushing costs out of reach for many Americans.
There is no doubt that America is now on an unsustainable path of debt, caused by too much / too big government; and yet kash and other support a bigger government through cap and tax and government run healthcare. kash, you also supported “Cash for Clunkers” and government subsidies for mortgages along with other stimulus spending. The end result is that real unemployment (not the 9.7% phoney figures announced recently) continues to rise. Contrary to much of the spin, home prices continue to fall as commodity prices rise. Public debt is now back on the growth path due in part to government programs like Cash for clunkers and rebates for real estate. It was massive debt and excessive spending that got us into this mess. Kash, do you still stand by the Keynesian model that what we need to do is go into more debt and spend more to get the economy back on track.
Here is part of an email I sent out recently. Take 5 minutes to listen to Ron Paul the tell me where his is wrong or do you agree with him?
I’ve not debated this topic with you to score points. I truely believe that what is at stake is our country and the future generations. The 2010 and 2012 elections will be the most critical period in modern American history.
Here is what I wrote and the link to Ron Paul:
A “Jobless Recovery” is an insult to the intelligence of those that possess this rare quality. Ron Paul video. A MUST WATCH.
http://libertymaven.com/2010/03/03/ron-paul-talks-bunning-and-economy-on-fox-business/9183/
Mike:”The Constitution is silent on homosexuality therefore homosexuals should be allowed to live as they wish so long as they do not violate any of the laws that all of us must abide by.” Laws against homosexual behavior use to be against the law, take for instance the sodomy laws in Texas which was a states rights issue until the US supreme court overturned the state laws and now this perversion is the norm, now it has done nothing but open up the flood gates to all kinds of imorallity. The Constitution states this very clearly that these types of laws are not in their juristiction and they had no business taking the case in the first place, but if people don’t understand the limits of these several and various areas of jurisdictions then it no wonder we are in a state of disarray.
Post# 116 is mine.
Paul: “Laws against homosexual behavior use to be against the law, take for instance the sodomy laws in Texas which was a states rights issue until the US supreme court overturned the state laws and now this perversion is the norm, now it has done nothing but open up the flood gates to all kinds of imorallity.”
That is my point. The supreme court, in my opinion has no right in interfere in state laws that do not directly violate the Constitution. The 10th Amendment has been trashed by “modern” Supreme Court rulings. Keep in mind that deciding Constitutionality has never been part of Supreme Court authority. This is a power it basically granted itself.
That said, like it or not, this is the system which is now in place. Congress and the executive branch can act to curb the power of the court but to date no one has the courage.
I agree with you that the “Liberal” court has been one of the most destructive forces on American culture and society. Somehow we continue to be in the wisdom of handing over enormous power to a handful of men. This was never the intent of our Founding Fathers.
America headed down the path of Argentina and other failed emerging markets. Make special note of the following, “elite business interests—financiers, in the case of the U.S.—played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government”
Good Analogy Alert: the U.S. and Collapsed Emerging Market Economies In the upcoming issue of The Atlantic, Simon Johnson — M.I.T. professor
In its depth and suddenness, the U.S. economic and financial crisis is shockingly reminiscent of moments we have recently seen in emerging markets (and only in emerging markets): South Korea (1997), Malaysia (1998), Russia and Argentina (time and again). In each of those cases, global investors, afraid that the country or its financial sector wouldn’t be able to pay off mountainous debt, suddenly stopped lending. And in each case, that fear became self-fulfilling, as banks that couldn’t roll over their debt did, in fact, become unable to pay. This is precisely what drove Lehman Brothers into bankruptcy on September 15, causing all sources of funding to the U.S. financial sector to dry up overnight. Just as in emerging-market crises, the weakness in the banking system has quickly rippled out into the rest of the economy, causing a severe economic contraction and hardship for millions of people.
But there’s a deeper and more disturbing similarity: elite business interests—financiers, in the case of the U.S.—played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse. More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive. The government seems helpless, or unwilling, to act against them.
Johnson shows how financial firms became more and more profitable, and a bigger and bigger part of the U.S. economy. More capital meant more political capital, he argues, which eventually meant nobody prevented the melt-down. The same political entrenchment makes fixing the banks difficult.
The obvious solution to the financial crisis, Johnson says — informed by his time at the I.M.F. — is simple. The United States should determine which banks can’t survive and temporarily nationalize them, instead of simply recapitalizing them, he says. But the relationship between top financiers and the government means this won’t happen — at least not unless things get much worse.
Still, his article includes a list of the policies (or lack thereof) which most contributed to the bubble and burst. It’s a great crib sheet of what Capitol Hill and the G-20 Summit will tackle, piece by piece, to reform the system. (I believe this will only occur when the system itself has either collapsed or is near collapsing. Right now the trajectory we are on is unchanged.)
• insistence on free movement of capital across borders;
• the repeal of Depression-era regulations separating commercial and investment banking;
• a congressional ban on the regulation of credit-default swaps;
• major increases in the amount of leverage allowed to investment banks;
• a light (dare I say invisible?) hand at the Securities and Exchange Commission in its regulatory enforcement;
• an international agreement to allow banks to measure their own riskiness;
• and an intentional failure to update regulations so as to keep up with the tremendous pace of financial innovation.
It’s fascinating, scary reading.
For those interested (MattF should be) National Geographic has a special starting tonight, I believe, one a world without Oil. I believe it is a must watch program even if the chances of the world running out of oil any time soon is highly unlikely. What is likely is that we will see increasing demand and tighter supplies in the years ahead. This will impact everyone’s way of life and it could lead to internation conflicts as countries fight for the limited oil resources.
I’d probably watch it if I had a television, Mike[smile].
John, ?????? No TV. I watch TV every now and then…..mostly to see what the financial gurus are saying so I can do the opposite
I do like certain programs on PBS, love all the Ken Burn series and Frontline. I’m also addicted to The Aniques Road Show. I find the history behind some of the items brought in facinating. Also the situations where someone throws something out or sells it for pennies when in fact it is worth thousands. I wonder at those times if the sellers are watching the program.
The point of NO oil is that we go back to living the way people did 200 years ago. Just think of all the things, including many modern medicines that come from oil or are somehow connected to it. Outside of water I can think of no other more valueable resource and we burn it!!! WE BURN OIL!!! Decades from now, future generations will look upon what we did with oil and wonder what on earth were we thinking of?
Anyway if you get a chance watch the program, I think it comes on at 10 PM tonight. I recommend it to everyone. The LOOMING oil crisis along with Sovereign defaults will be the highlights of the next decade. Eventually we will have to face the energy shortage by using less of it. Unfortunately, instead of preparing for Peak Oil we will be reacting to its reality. This alone will cause global economic stress and as nations begin to default on their debts, the whole financial house of cards will come crashing down. Then and only then will people demand that we return to an asset backed monetary system. Ideally, it would going back to using gold and silver coin but I doubt the banksters and politicians would be in favor of giving up so much power.
No here is a question no one has ever considered. “The US holds the biggest hoard of gold of any nation on earth. That gold is valued at $42 per ounce. We all know that gold is trading (China, India, and even Venezuela are buying it) at over $1100. Why does our government continue to value gold at $42?”
Hint:The right answer to that question, would expose the fraud inherent in the currency.
Nope, Mike, no television in my house. I collect and read for my pleasure and information….when I’m not in THIS house[my parents]typing these posts, that is[smile]. If your program is added into the National Geographic mag. then I’ll read about it there eventually. Life 200 years ago sounds rather appealing to me in many ways. I sure would miss the movies, books, music, and junkfood thoughI can’t add healthcare to the list, because I have none.].
I do hope some of you are watching the Nat. Geo Special, a World with no oil. It is a bit dramatic and I doubt that all of a sudden we would have NO oil. But the results would be similar if there were an oil shortage.
Nearly everything we use is connected to oil. Many of our medicines would vanish without this valuable resource. In my opinion, Peak Oil is a more clear and present danger than Global Warming. But as I have said, “Solve Peak oil and you automatically solve MMGW.”
BTW, when considering using food crops for energy one must consider the amount of energy it takes to produce 1 BTU from let’s say corn or soybeans. If it takes 1 BTU of energy to produce 1 BTU of energy, you are basically wasting your time.
Just one criticism on the program. In an oil shortage, the military would get first priority not fire and rescue.
I do agree with the statement “the world once so interconnected is now finding itself isolated.”
One of the benefits of an oil shortage would be that food would be locally grown. It would also encourage home based manufacturing since shipping goods across the globe would be prohibitively expensive. We would all depend more on our neighbors and probably get to know them better than we do now. Self contained communities would replace the suburbs.
The sad part of the coming oil crisis is that we are unprepared and therefore will suffer needlessly. We should have been working on this problem decades ago, instead we are ignoring it. Politicians will blame the oil companies for high prices and eventually for shortages. They will also blame oil producers and seek military solutions to gain the much needed oil.
I’m telling you it is going to be a mess for a while and all so needless. I wish our politicians would listen to men like Matt Simmons who have real solutions. Instead they concentrate on getting themselves re-elected. At some point politics will have to give way to solutions….the problems will demand it.
Here is a link to the Nat Geo website that has a preview of the program.
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/aftermath/4462/Overview#tab-Videos/07862_00
Thank you for the link Mike.