My Quest for Truth and Liberty
Posts tagged Liberty
Tuesday Morning
Oct 12th
I don’t really have time to launch into one of those subjects I keep meaning to write about. I must prepare my economic and history classes for the week.
Yesterday I was working on the first lesson for my online class starting next semester. Exclusive information: If I can get this class prepared in the next few weeks, I might even do another one on American history! So for the first lesson I went back to Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and the Scholastics. It was very interesting. I had studied Aristotle and Aquinas from a religious perspective so it was fun to find out how their philosophies affected their economic thinking. And then today or tomorrow I’ll be looking at the early Classical school, J.B. Say, Adam Smith, etc…and that should be enlightening. Not many people realize how deeply flawed Adam Smith was. I think that this background on the Austrian school will help the students realize how important Menger was, what a significant development the theory of marginal utility was and so forth.
So…if you’re interested in an online class unmasking some of the lies the government has told us about American history, please let me know. 
Can a Christian Be an Anarchist?
Oct 10th
This is a question I’ve been asking myself lately. I’ve done a lot of thinking, not to mention praying, on this subject. Here are some thoughts…
Consider this hypothetical situation:
1) There is a tyrannical despot ruling over a country.
2) God “raptures” all believers (no, I don’t believe in “the rapture”…but it is useful for this imaginary situation).
3) Unbelievers rebel against the government and slowly anarchy emerges. Private road systems form. People begin offering their services…post offices, crime protection, etc…
4) God brings Christians back to the world and sets them in this anarchic society.
In this situation, from what I have read, I don’t believe it would be unbiblical for Christians to live in this type of anarchy. They can still respect the authorities, be it a judge, the owner of a road, or someone else. I don’t see that this would be wrong for a Christian. And in this way, a Christian would be an anarchist.
But obviously, this situation isn’t likely. But I think this hypothetical scenario shows that it wouldn’t be wrong for Christians to live under anarchy. It becomes problematic when we think about the transition to a stateless society. We aren’t going to be raptured away from the world while this happens. If a Christian would be happy to live under anarchy, the real question is, how do we get to that? And what is the Christian’s role–if any–in the abolishing of the state?
I think this is the real tension for the Christian anarchist. How are we to obey Romans 13 and yet promote the idea of a stateless society? And I don’t think the answer is going to be as clear as the answers to some of our questions. After all, the Bible doesn’t say, “When your government requires a 25% income tax, you may revolt.” I think it is obvious that Christians are not required to submit to Hitler, or some government as atrocious as he was. For me, the problem is this: The Bible tells us to respect the governing authorities. But yet if I stay silent on some issues, I am betraying the God that I live for. If I stay silent on the issue of murder, I’m denying through my actions, the Creator of life. Most Christians would agree that it is permissible and actually required that they disobey a government which tells them to do that which God forbids them to do or keeps them from doing that which God has expressly commanded them to do. But I also feel that we ought to be an example to the world, a people who refuses to deny the sanctity of life and other fundamental beliefs. Right now the government allows us to speak somewhat freely. And we should be taking advantage of that. And if the government forbade any sort of free speech, we ought to do it anyways. What kind of followers of God would we be if we sat silently by while a government murdered people?
So theoretically I see no problem with a Christian believing that an anarchic society would be workable and would be possible for them to live under. Practically, it is another matter. It doesn’t seem that Christians should be involved in outright rebellion against the state (like breaking a ridiculous law and videotaping the cop accosting you for the purpose of publicity and ridiculing the state). Despite what we think of the government, God commands Christians to respect the authorities. Where we draw the line and say, “no, I can no longer submit to this…” well, that’s a different matter. Depending on our circumstances and knowledge of the Bible I think we’ll draw different lines. We may have different issues that trigger this. Perhaps it will be abortion. Perhaps for others it will be the draft. And the Bible doesn’t speak on these specific issues. We must be comparing our lives to the Scriptures and guided by the Holy Spirit through prayer we must constantly be striving to live according to the will of God. That is what really matters, in the end.
Report on the Economic Workshop
Oct 9th
My initial reaction to the whole day: Wow. I’m tired.
Not sleeping well the night before certainly doesn’t help. I made more mistakes today than usual, “why does a value have good? Oh, oops…I mean, why does a good have value?” but I couldn’t really help that.
I don’t know about everyone else, but I certainly had fun. That was a great day! It was more enjoyable than having to cram as much as I could into 30 minutes or something like that, as when I speak at other events. I actually stayed on-time and we had plenty of time for discussion and questions.
It was nice to be able to present the whole foundation of Austrian economics, from a priori knowledge (the action axiom) to entrepreneurs, competition, inflation, etc…I enjoyed it all very much, as I hope the students did. And thanks to the Mises Institute and Jeremy Davis, I was able to send everyone home with lots of fliers, info, booklets and even a copy of “Pictures of a Socialistic Future.”
Memo to People Who Rule the World with a Weather Machine: Next time I have an economic workshop can you make it about 10 degrees cooler (about 65 would be perfect, but we could be content with 70) and a strong cool breeze, preferably from the south? It just gets a bit warm in the barn when it is 80 degrees out. And I wish the weather would be a bit more predictable, I never would have guessed it would be 80 degrees here in the middle of October. Thank you for your cooperation.
Wow. Read This
Oct 9th
For some reason I didn’t sleep last night. I suspect it might be some new tea I drank that might have caffeine in it. At any rate, I stumbled out of bed this morning to check my email and all…when I came to this incredible article posted on Facebook by a friend. The Nobel Peace Prize just went to Liu Xiaobo of China. After their selection last year, I have absolutely no respect for the Nobel Prize committee. I didn’t hear much about this man, Liu Xiaobo, and didn’t think anymore about it until this morning.
This is his final statement, I believe after which he was sentenced to 11 years in prison. All I could say was, “wow.” It is so encouraging to see people around the world giving their lives for the same ideas that I’m promoting. The note before his statement is interesting as well. The person (writer for that website? I’m not sure of their name) pointed out that these political dissidents don’t appeal to the rights they have as Chinese citizens but as human beings. Liu Xiaobo’s arguments are universal. They are the same arguments we should be using.
Anyways, without further delay, I would like to quote my favorite part of his statement:
“I have no enemies, and no hatred. None of the police who monitored, arrested and interrogated me, the prosecutors who prosecuted me, or the judges who sentence me, are my enemies. While I’m unable to accept your surveillance, arrest, prosecution or sentencing, I respect your professions and personalities. This includes Zhang Rongge and Pan Xueqing who act for the prosecution at present: I was aware of your respect and sincerity in your interrogation of me on 3 December.
For hatred is corrosive of a person’s wisdom and conscience; the mentality of enmity can poison a nation’s spirit, instigate brutal life and death struggles, destroy a society’s tolerance and humanity, and block a nation’s progress to freedom and democracy. I hope therefore to be able to transcend my personal vicissitudes in understanding the development of the state and changes in society, to counter the hostility of the regime with the best of intentions, and defuse hate with love.”
And what can I say? He has said all that I have ever thought, and much more eloquently than I could ever hope. And even more poignantly, he has a life that gives silent testimony to his staunch belief in these ideas. May we be brave enough to not only blog about liberty but also live it.
No News, Really
Oct 7th
Perhaps it is too early in the morning…I just can’t seem to find something to write about. My mind is very focused (okay, no, I’m never very focused, how can one be on a Mac? But I’m trying pretty hard to stay concentrated) on the Economic Workshop on Saturday. Thanks to a generous friend, Jeremy Davis of Houston, I’ve been able to buy a large grease-board, markers, etc…and also I splurged and bought my own color ink cartridge. You don’t know how ridiculous this is. There is no one in Winnebago who prints color anymore. No one. Not the library. Not the drug store. No one. It is always quite the nightmare for me to find somewhere to print fliers or whatnot….so I told myself, “Come on, Savannah, really. You have the money. This would be a perfect way to put it to use. Just do it.” So I bought a $25 color cartridge. I know I can probably get it cheaper somewhere else, but I’m not ready to go running around Rockford looking for a $5 deal. So I came home and designed some fliers for my online class and printed them….in color. Suffice to say, they look very nice.
Back to the grease-board. It really isn’t feasible right now to get a big screen and projector and all for powerpoints. But I wanted some way to visually explain some of these economic concepts. Hence, the grease-board. I’m a little torn about it. On the one hand, I can see it as being outdated, clumsy to use, etc…and just not as useful as some of this new technology. But on the other hand, I think I’ll like the spontaneity of a grease-board over a prepared powerpoint. If someone doesn’t know how to spell a word, I can write it on the board. If we get off on another topic I wasn’t planning on, I can still draw diagrams and all. It seems to allow more freedom. But I haven’t used it for an actual event yet, so we’ll see how I feel after Saturday.
Wednesday Report
Oct 6th
Sadly, there isn’t much to report…last night while playing piano I thought of some really good topic to discuss here, but of course I didn’t write it down, so I can’t remember now. Here are some odds and ends.
Yesterday the girls and I had a history class. It is usually on Wednesdays, but they were begging me to do it a day early. We were talking about the writing of the Constitution. I’m eager to buy Hans Hoppe’s book, “Democracy: The God That Failed.” I don’t think the girls quite understand the fundamental shift that occurred when the Articles of Confederation were abolished and the Constitution ratified. I’m having them do a project that I hope will help demonstrate this. I’m having them make a paper chain, and each link of the chain has a couple words from the Pledge of Allegiance. I know, I know…this sounds crazy. My mother said, “what? Have you gone out of your mind?” But there’s a reason for this. This chain, “united” by the Pledge of Allegiance is just that–a chain. We will talk about what it means for the country to be “indivisible.” How does this encourage more freedom? Are the links of this chain freer than they were before they were united? We’ll talk about some of these ideas…and of course, the Pledge of Allegiance itself. I hope it will give them a tangible way to think about decentralizing power.
And then last night another sister came in to “keep me company.” I usually reserve my evenings for studying, but I wanted to make the most of this opportunity. So I offered to read a book with her. Most of my books do not have pictures, so we looked at the Mises 2010 Book Catalog with lots of pictures. We also looked at the flier from the Institute, “About the Ludwig von Mises Institute” with pictures of Mises and others. We saw a picture of Tom Woods, so then thanks to Facebook I could show her pictures of his cute girls…and also a picture of their new van. I told her about how nice Lew Rockwell is, and she said, “does he listen to everyone?” I think this was meant in the sense of someone who obeys their parents…and I wasn’t going to try to explain how he was nice and yet didn’t listen to the government. That will come in time. She can recognize Mises and Rothbard now in pictures. I said that Rothbard was a funny man, and fun to be around. She asked, “does he play lots of games?” And of course we had to tackle this Lincoln myth. I explained to her how mean Lincoln was, how he would throw good people in prison. So she carried on this little dialogue, “I will say to Lincoln, ‘I’ll be your friend’ but he will say, ‘No, I’m going to throw you in prison!’ I don’t want to be his friend!” Suffice to say, this girl isn’t going to grow up politically correct.
So that was an interesting evening, and probably unlike any other evening she spends reading books.
It is good to start them young, you know.
Actually, this was a report on Tuesday, so what about the Wednesday report? Since we did history yesterday, the rest of this week will be preparing for the workshop on Saturday. I’m going to go buy some materials and such that I’ll need. Really looking forward to it, should be a fun day. If you didn’t register but would like to come, please feel free to sign up late. There aren’t any late fees or anything, you can still come!
“Defending the Faith”
Oct 5th
Knowing my interest in politics, the role of the Christian in the world, etc…my pastor loaned me a book called “Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America” by D.G. Hart. I’m still on the first chapter but am greatly enjoying it. Machen seemed to be the type of Christian who would not compromise on his beliefs even with the onslaught of liberalism but yet he was so “fundamentalist” that he could not enjoy and appreciate the more secular things of this world. While he had a very high moral standard, he saw that it was wrong to force this standard on others. He did not advocate that the government enforce the laws and standards of Scripture on all people, Christian and non-Christian. He was, at heart, a libertarian. And a very staunch Christian. This fascinates me. It seems so often at least in the intellectual circles that you get libertarians who are atheists, agnostics, or some watered down version of Christians or you get what I “fondly” (not) call “neo-cons”…the people who want to make America God’s nation and make everyone act like Christians. Neither of these alternatives suit me…so I’m enjoying this biography about a man who did a good job balancing his beliefs and the liberty that all people ought to have to live as they please. For instance, he opposed Prohibition, which led to quite an argument between him and the Christian fundamentalists who would never dream of…gasp!…allowing people to do what they want! And I highly recommend Machen’s “Christianity and Liberalistm”…it is one of those quotable books that you just want to memorize and carry with you always. It is a penetrating analysis of modernism and the ensuing liberalism creeping into the church. By liberalism I don’t mean Democrats and I don’t mean Classical Liberals like Mises. I mean those who promoted the idea that the Bible isn’t scientifically proven to be correct, that Jesus wasn’t really God, that He was just a good man, that He didn’t really perform miracles, etc…Machen showed that this type of scientific conclusions about the Bible destroy our foundation for faith (Jesus Christ as the Son of God) and without that, there cannot be Christianity.
Today: Very Happy Day
Oct 4th
Today was another day in which I received a package in the mail from a place I’m very familiar with.
Next to my desk…
There is a rather large box full of fliers and books donated by the Mises Institute, specifically the book by Mises, “The Place of Economics in Learning” and the flier, “Why Austrian Economics Matters.” This came in the mail today.
There’s a box next to it full of copies of “Pictures of a Socialistic Future”…donated by a friend for my workshop. And behind that and spilling over the bottom shelf of my books are hundreds of copies of “The Free Market.” And if I didn’t have quite enough copies…I requested some copies of the one featuring the article, “The Sovereign Individual.” Before those arrived, I had the others nicely stacked, but after getting about 100 of them I gave up on any order…hence I’m drowning in “The Sovereign Individual” at this moment. I haven’t had an opportunity to hand any out, but I will try my best to get rid of them.
There are some copies of “Anatomy of the State” in the mail as well, bought during the 20% off sale.
All I can say is: THANK YOU! (To the Mises Institute and Jeremy Davis specifically, but if you are reading this, thank you for reading it)
I’m more than happy to be drowning in individual sovereignty, more than happy to trip over boxes of books…I shall have many opportunities to share these materials with others.
It gives me much pleasure to think of passing along these wonderful books and fliers at Tea Party events, economic workshops and more.
P.S. My mother is also happy because I’m accumulating so much stuff around my desk, I shall soon be forced to organize it.
The Free Market: Amazing
Oct 4th
So last week I listened to a great deal of BBC radio music. I had forgotten but the reason I went with BBC over local stations was because iTunes wasn’t working and so it was very difficult to get the local stations to play on my computer. BBC has a built-in player that does all the work for you. Then yesterday I went to play an online Christian station that I listen to on Sundays, but they must have changed something because I could no longer listen to it through the website. I had to do it through iTunes…but of course, iTunes didn’t work. The problem was that some of the iTunes program files were not available to me as this particular user. I had to go add myself as someone who can read and write the files…and then suddenly the problem that had plagued me for months was gone! The glorious thing we call iTunes opened. I like iTunes mostly because of the radio stations. It has so many radio stations already available, I can choose talk shows (conservative, liberal, state-sponsored, anarchist, libertarian…), jazz (old, vocal, instrumental, modern…), classical (baroque, opera, romantic, Bach [yes, there's one radio station that just plays Bach]…) and the list goes on. Instead of manually choosing all my favorite songs and then playing them over and over every day, I just turn on a radio station and let it go. I don’t have to skip over songs I’m tired of, I really don’t have to think about the music at all. It frees up my time. And I don’t have to have an internet window open, which means there are far less distractions when I’m working (can anyone say, “Facebook”?). And that’s the free market. What was music like 100 years ago? I know that in the 30′s they were just coming out with radios (yeah, everyone listened to FDR every week, poor people)…but now we thousands of radio stations available from all over the world (I’m listening to Venice Classical Music right now)…at our fingertips. And this is in a quasi-free market…I know that it isn’t a truly free market. So what would technology be like if we got the government out of the market all together? Now that’s exciting to think about.
For lack of something else, I will “spill the beans” on something I’m working on. Perhaps I’ve mentioned this before? Hopefully by early spring 2011, I will have a book out. It is a collection of short stories (fiction…not some long lecture on why we should have liberty or an exposition on the life of people in eastern Mongolia in 1468 A.D.) that I’ve written over the past couple years. Two of them have been previously published on this site, the other one is still in draft. So, just keep that in mind…I had to start advertising now. I’m very happy to be so close to publishing my own book…and I can’t wait to see what the cover looks like, it promises to be very beautiful. Watch for it then, early 2011.
All for now, much to do today, as there is every day. I seem to add things to my to-do list in some sort of perverse habit of wanting more to do than I could ever possibly complete. But I’ll try my best!
“What If?”
Oct 2nd
This is one of my favorite videos ever. I hope we never forget the truths that Ron Paul points out. It is a matter of life and death. Perhaps not for us, but for other innocent human beings.
