Monthly archive: June, 2009

Liberty and False Dichotomies

June 24, 2009, by 2 comments

Tonight I read two articles by authors who probably don’t quite agree philosophically or theologically, but were actually saying very similar things with regards to the associations and choice of groupings that people are inclined to belong. Brian McLaren was praising an article on his blog who was pointing out the false dichotomy between “big government” and “big business,” as well as fighting off the assumption that either “bigger is better” or “smaller is better,” quoting Rick Warren’s corrective: “Better is better.”

Neither bigger nor smaller is the goal. Freedom is the goal. However freedom for every individual——regardless of race, sexual orientation, or stature in society——is achieved, that would be “better.” McLaren is very adept at pointing out false dichotomies, and as I pointed out in an earlier post, the answers one comes to are fruitless if you’re asking the wrong questions.

The second article I read by Chris Hornberger points out that the founding fathers of the United States understood liberty and what threatens it. He gives particular attention to the concept of rights, which are bestowed upon human beings by their Creator, not by the government. He also explains the reason why we must have any government at all.

How do these two article relate? While on the one hand McLaren points out (rightfully) that the argument isn’t about bigger vs. smaller, Hornberger points out that the founding fathers understood that freedom to associate (“free enterprise”) was a natural inclination of mankind, and Americans would naturally do so in a productive way. Smaller government, to the founding fathers, was assumed; it was “better” by default, because it permitted the freedoms of the people to drive society and thrive upon individuals associating with whomever they pleased.

Doug

Doug Stuart is a committed follower of Jesus and passionate about building for the Kingdom of God through education and mobilization. He is a regular writer at LibertarianChristians.com as well as the founder of Living Loud.

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Obama Our Hero (video)

June 20, 2009, by 3 comments

He may not be our savior, but at least he can be our superhero-in-chief! JibJab always has the greatest short videos to make us laugh, no matter what side of the political spectrum we come from!

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In God We Trust?

June 18, 2009, by No comments yet

As a kid I used to be really proud of the printed “In God We Trust” on our money. It gave me a sense of satisfaction that the United States was a “Christian Nation,” and that for the most part, we all trusted in God to provide for us. I was taught that the founding fathers were Christians “just like me” (they weren’t), who believed in prayer in public schools (there weren’t “public” schools back then), and who believed in individual freedom (while most of them owned slaves).

As time has passed, the United States government, as all governments do, has grown increasingly involved in the lives of its citizens (and citizens of other nations, sadly enough) for the sake of benevolence and “general welfare.” In the interest of good will and progress, more and more men and women in government wish to bestow upon its citizens certain “rights,” and declare any opposition to those “rights” as hateful, lacking compassion or care, or (invoking spiritual support) ignoring Jesus’ command to take care of the poor (conveniently ignoring that Jesus was speaking to a nation already committed to being God’s people on earth). Slowly but surely, citizens begin to look to the federal government to protect individual “rights” which the government itself has declared.

Consider the following similarities between government and religion:

1. A benevolent, often patriarchal, entity

“I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you.” This statement is laughable, really, when you think about it. Our own government wastes billions of dollars each year, couldn’t even protect its own military headquarters from being bombed, and has been complicit in devaluing our money throughout its history. Yet somehow the masses are deluded into believing that since “we are the government” (a silly notion barren of any real substance), and since “we” elect our representatives, the people in power are “our people” and will only do what is best for us.

As John Stossel says, “Give me a break!”

2. Reverence not only for that benevolent force, but also for the symbols representing it

Consider the flag in churches, homes, and on bumper stickers and any marketable piece of material around Independence Day each year. Or think of the emotion it brings to know that the government takes care of Grandma in her old age, gives Grandpa the “right” to stop working 20 years before he dies. Or the reverence we have for our armed forces, especially on Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and other times of the year.

3. Willingness to sacrifice

It’s ironic that a Constitution limiting the powers of a federal government permits that same government’s court system to determine what exactly that Constitution means. It’s even more ironic that public sacrifice is hailed as a greater good than individual rights. Consider the praise and admiration of Barack Obama’s willingness to “give up” being a well-paid businessman and spend his life pursuing “public service.” Or consider the disdain for the rich who “don’t pay their fair share” of the burden on society (ignoring completely that they got rich by providing goods and services that everybody wanted in the first place).

4. Pledging a percentage of one’s income

When one joins a religious organization, there’s an implicit, if not stated, expectation to give voluntarily of one’s resources and income. The government “collects” taxes in the name of public good, ostensibly providing goods and services paid for by those taxes. Citizens somehow believe that because the government pays for things like roads and education, the beneficiaries of such services assume it’s no big deal to “give” the government their money. Eventually it feels voluntary, when nothing could be further from the truth. If you think taxes are voluntary, try not volunteering your money; eventually you’ll be looking down the barrel of a gun.

So in whom do we trust?

The above specifics are not inherently immoral or bad, but they represent artifacts of a government that presumes to be a provider of rights, entitlements, and eventually the happiness of its citizens. The alternative paradigm follows the line of thinking described by Thomas Jefferson when he said, “When God gave us life, he gave us liberty with it.” In a free society, governed by those who will protect the rights of all equally, the government has a rightful place to punish and restrain evil and promote justice. The United States Constitution guarantees that the State shall not “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Just as God does not play favorites, neither does justice if we are a nation of laws.

America is not a “Christian nation,” because our Constitution respects no establishment of religion. America was founded to be free from the tyranny of foreign nations, as well as to keep men free from the tyranny of governments. But as time has progressed, more and more people look to the federal government to provide security, whether it be economic security in the form of job guarantees, physical security in the form of military activity, or health security in the form of universal health care. While all these may be predicated upon good intentions, those who place hope in such security place a false hope for the government to do what it simply cannot do: take care of them. The government is not our parent, it is not our nanny, and it is certainly not our god.

Doug

Doug Stuart is a committed follower of Jesus and passionate about building for the Kingdom of God through education and mobilization. He is a regular writer at LibertarianChristians.com as well as the founder of Living Loud.

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The Root of All Evil, Part 1

June 17, 2009, by No comments yet

Understanding Savings and Lending

In my last post, I articulated that the questions we often ask can be the wrong ones. For instance, “How do we help the poor?” is a great question, but “Why are the poor in the condition they are in?” is a better one to start with. If we can answer the second one, we’ll be in a better position to answer the first. Further, if we know the answer to the second one, we may avoid lots of trial and error (though that is unavoidable no matter what) attempting to help the poor in ways that won’t work, simply because we’re running on the assumption that we’ve already got the answer to the better question, “What caused this in the first place?”

Through a long arduous process of understanding some basic economics, I mentioned at the end of the last post that I’ve concluded that the central banking system in the United States, what we know as “the Fed,” formally the Federal Reserve System, is the root of all sorts of evil. Central banking is predicated on the assumption that a few men in control of the supply of money can direct the flow of that money in ways beneficial to the economy. Ignoring the natural tendency toward corruption in such a paradigm, it is assumed that since the United States government has historically been on the side of “the people,” having a central bank doesn’t hurt us, it only helps us.

Nothing could be further from the truth. But before I get ahead too far, let’s consider how savings and borrowing works in the absence of some authoritarian figure. The following article provides and excellent description of what is called the “business cycle.” The business cycle is the economist lingo for what we know as “boom and bust” cycles in the economy. Four years ago, we were in a “boom,” and everything was hunky dory (according to conventional wisdom). Now we’re in a “bust,” and all hell has broken loose (so we’re told). But why did it happen this way? Why can’t we have an economy where things just progress slowly, but would be less volatile? Why can’t we have steady growth, rather than ups and downs, ebbs and flows? Lest you think the free market was at fault, think again.

Here’s an excerpt from the article, which can be read in full by clicking here.

Man is confronted with a world of physical scarcity. That is, not all of our wants and needs, which are practically limitless, can be met. Outside of the Garden of Eden, we must produce in order to consume, and this means that we must combine our labor with whatever nature-given resources are available to us. As inherently rational beings, men have come to recognize many ways of solving this problem, such as peaceful cooperation under the division of labor leading to enhanced productivity, and private property rights permitting economic calculation so that different courses of action can be meaningfully compared.

Doug

Doug Stuart is a committed follower of Jesus and passionate about building for the Kingdom of God through education and mobilization. He is a regular writer at LibertarianChristians.com as well as the founder of Living Loud.

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Questioning the Right Answers?

June 16, 2009, by 3 comments

Brian McLaren taught me an incredibly useful principle, and it has become one of the most useful tools in the pursuit of truth.

It doesn’t matter how good your answers are if you aren’t asking the right questions.

We all know that poll questions can be worded in such a way as to “skew” the answers to the questions. In any study or discipline, such as theology or philosophy, the questions we ask are important because they lead us to certain answers. Theological questions do the same thing: they narrow down our answers in the confines of the scope of the question itself.

McLaren’s incredible ability to explain why some questions are irrelevant, unimportant, or sometimes wrongheaded, and his aptitude for reconstructing better questions more relevant to today’s world, have helped me see through the mist and haze of various world views and their entrapping questions. As I’ve been burrowing through the rabbit hole we call “economics,” and a more all-encompassing notion of social justice, I’m learning that the conventional questions are perhaps misleading and insufficient to find ethical and sustainable answers.

Before starting my self-study of economics, I knew practically nothing about supply, demand, money, exchange, capital, investments, and all the other accompanying pieces of an economy. I was taught the basics my senior year of high school, but I didn’t understand most of it, and what I did understand I didn’t find all that relevant to my goals in life.

For over a year now, I’ve questioned everything with regards to economics, and I’m discovering that the questions we tend to ask about economics only deal with the symptoms rather than the problems. If one sits down on a thumb tack, and pursues a long regimen of physical therapy, medicine, and other forms of pain relief, but doesn’t even consider removing the tack itself, we would call this person ignorant or deluded. And when it comes to economics, if we don’t focus on the source, we won’t know how to relieve the symptoms.

So let’s get to the source of the pain. If you are at all interested in fighting against injustice, against the activities, policies, and agendas that result in the poor remaining poor, the rich gaining at the expense of the poor, and the shrinking of the “middle class,” then you must find the source of the pain.

I used to mock those who say that economic injustices are “institutional problems” that favor the wealthy, leaving the poor to fend for themselves. I now believe this to be true, but in a very different way, and in a more specific institution. The more I seek to understand this particular institution, the more I realize how horrible the “system” really is in the United States, and how much it needs to change. For those who want to fight for social justice, economic equality, and the abolition of institutionalized economic injustice, that fight must be taken directly to the source.

Care to know what the source is? Would it surprise you? Would it even fall under the McLaren principle of asking a very different question?

If you want to find the source, take a close look at the Federal Reserve Bank. In future posts, I’ll mostly link to articles concerning the evil that is the Federal Reserve System, and why it is so important to understand this as what I’ve just described it to be.

Doug

Doug Stuart is a committed follower of Jesus and passionate about building for the Kingdom of God through education and mobilization. He is a regular writer at LibertarianChristians.com as well as the founder of Living Loud.

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New Baby Girl

June 13, 2009, by 2 comments

annastuart6-12-09-1289Yesterday, June 12, at 3:36am, Anna joined our world as the second of our children. While my wife was scheduled for an induction, she had begun pre-labor earlier in the day, and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. The delivery went well, and both mommy and baby are great.

But this wouldn’t be a typical post if I didn’t make economic comments about the experience. As I sat looking around the hospital room, eyeing up the equipment, monitors, listening to the knowledge of the nurses and midwife, and watching my wife deliver with virtually no pain at all because of modern medicine, it occurred to me that whoever researched, produced, invented, or otherwise contributed to the technology we have today in the medical field, they sure deserve whatever millions of profits they’ve received. To think that if every medical researcher and doctor simply did things in the spirit of pure altruism, then the medical field would be a better place, is just pure stupidity. I honestly don’t care if the team who developed the epidural were greedy people; they became wealthy by providing something that women in labor have wanted throughout history.

I literally got tears in my eyes thinking about the progress that we’ve made in the United States because of the free market, and because people have had the freedom to invent, develop, and produce things that are good for society, are what people want, and provide a profitable venture. As privileged as this next comment mind sound coming from a white male, health care is not a fundamental human right, it is a luxury. Now, I’m a big fan of making health care affordable for as many people as possible, which is why a free market provides the quickest way to the production of goods and services that make possible luxuries for the masses. 200 years ago, presidents and prime ministers didn’t share in the wealth and luxury we have today. The free market has been the most productive, efficient, and progressive means of providing luxuries for as many people as possible at the fastest rate in human history. The shame is not that some people are unable to receive some of those luxuries; the shame is that most people who think it’s a shame want to make it even more difficult for society to progress toward making it easier for the poorest among us to take advantage of such luxuries.

Speaking of luxuries, lemme get back to my new daughter… she’s got beautiful eyes.

Doug

Doug Stuart is a committed follower of Jesus and passionate about building for the Kingdom of God through education and mobilization. He is a regular writer at LibertarianChristians.com as well as the founder of Living Loud.

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