Sunday, May 19, 2013

1773 Boston Tea Party = Vandalism

The original "Boston Tea Party" was an unChristian act of vandalism. No true Christian should participate in such acts of violence. I'm willing to believe that Sam Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, and others who were involved in this ignoble act repented of their deeds.

Ann Coulter, in contrasting the "Tea Party Movement" and the "Occupy Wall Street" protests of October 2011 writes:
     First of all, the Boston Tea Party was nothing like tattooed, body–pierced, sunken-chested 19-year-olds getting in fights with the police for fun. Paul Revere's nighttime raid was intended exclusively to protest a new British tea tax. (The Wall Street protesters would be more likely to fight for a new tax than against one.)
     Revere made sure to replace a broken lock on one of the ships and severely punished a participant who stole some of the tea for his private use. Samuel Adams defended the raid by saying that all other methods of recourse -- say, voting -- were unavailable.
    Our revolution -- the only revolution that led to greater freedom since at least 1688 -- was not the act of a mob.
     As specific and limited as it was, however, even the Boston Tea Party was too mob-like to spark anything other than retaliatory British measures. Indeed, it set back the cause of American independence by dispiriting both American and British supporters, such as Edmund Burke.     George Washington disapproved of the destruction of the tea.
     Benjamin Franklin demanded that the India Tea Co. be reimbursed for it.
     Considered an embarrassment by many of our founding fathers, the Boston Tea Party was not celebrated for another 50 years.
     It would be three long years after the Boston Tea Party when our founding fathers engaged in their truly revolutionary act: The signing of the Declaration of Independence.
     In that document, our Christian forebears set forth in blindingly clear terms their complaints with British rule, their earlier attempts at resolution, and an appeal to the Supreme Judge of the world for independence from the crown.
     The rebel armies defending that declaration were not a disorganized mob, chanting slogans for the press and defacing public property.
     Even the Minutemen, whose first scuffle with the British began the war, were a real army with ranks, subordination, coordination, drills and supplies. There is not a single mention in the historical record of Minutemen playing hacky-sack, burning candles assembled in "peace and love," or sitting in drum circles.
     A British lieutenant-general who fought the Minutemen observed, "Whoever looks upon them as an irregular mob will find himself very much mistaken."
     By contrast, the directionless losers protesting "Wall Street" -- Obama's largest donor group -- pose for the cameras while uttering random liberal clichés lacking any reason or coherence.
Neo-conservatives like Ann Coulter disapprove of the violence of "irregular mobs," but not the systematic, institutionalized violence of empires like the U.S. "No" to the "Tea Party," but "YES" to the nation-wide American Revolution.

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Kreitzer on Government Force


Mark R. Kreitzer writes:

> Sad . . . you seem to make a fundamental philosophical error at
> the beginning in the major premise: All force is evil.

I think the "non-aggression" axiom is a start, but pacifism is a prima facie reading of Christ's ethical teachings.

> This cannot be justified by Scripture else Joshua,

"Holy War" against the inhabitants of the Promised Land cannot override the pacifist teachings of Christ and justify any government force today.

> David,

David was a "man of blood," hence disqualified from building the temple.

> Abraham rescuing Lot,

Admittedly a problematic instance. Abraham was not sinless. Kidnapping was a "capital crime" under the Old Covenant, but I don't think "capital punishment" is warranted in the New. Nevertheless, rescuing someone is certainly valid, though wanton killing of the captors is unjustified.

> Jesus sending armies against Jerusalem,

Jesus was God. He commands us to leave vengeance to God. He commanded His disciples not to defend Him or take vengeance against the Jews (Matthew 26:52; John 18:35)

> etc would be evil.

Yes, they would be. And they are. At least they are after the work of Christ on the cross.

> ONLY unjustified aggressive force is evil. (Non-aggression principle
> not equal to Non-violence principle).

We don't have to argue over definitions of words. No aggressive force is justified.

If I snatch a wallet out of Smith's hand, that might appear to be violence, but if I just witnessed Smith stealing your wallet, and I am retrieving it for you, it's not violence. If it were Smith's wallet, it would in fact be unjustified violence or aggression.

In our day, justified violence is extraordinary. Unjustified violence is ubiquitous. Governments murdered half a billion people in the 20th century. I'm always curious what motivates someone to rise to defend violence and attack pacifism.

> Second, you make an unwarranted false premise is stating that
> all taxation is the moral equivalent to theft. Then the tenth tax to
> God's Palace and his palace servants with which to help the poor
> and the needy as well is evil.

Yes, any attempt to extort money from someone on that basis is (present tense) evil. God had every right under the Old Covenant to require a tithe, but I don't see the practical mechanics for such a demand in our day. There is no more "God's Palace" after AD 70, and no more "palace servants." There are, arguably, no poor, at least in the U.S. The "church" collected the tithe in the OT; why the State today?

> No, taxation is to support what God
> defines as the ONE necessary function of civil government --
> exercise of completely impartial biblical justice.

The word "ONE" is emphasized, yet there are obviously other purposes, such as "palace servants" and "the poor." No conservative supports a welfare state. Where are the specific Biblical texts which say "no more taxation for the poor" and yet also mandate tax-supported arbitration of disputes (which the Free Market is better qualified to undertake)?

> Who, however, defines impartial justice? Who defines the four
> governments? Who defines justified force? Who defines government
> spheres? Who defines functions and boundaries of each? The God
> of Scripture. Seen in this light and combining Rom 12 and 13
> as this site does, Christian minarchy (i.e., a strictly limited Christian
> Constitutional Republic) is the answer not non-Christian anarchy.

False choice. What about Christian anarchy?

> A strictly limited civil government is only one of four governments
> (ecclessial--rule by elders under Christ), familial (rule by father and
> mother under God-in-Christ), civil (a Christic Republic with the
> framework of the Decalogue under God in Christ), and the
> FOUNDATIONAL self-government by the Holy Spirit in Christ.

I agree about "self-government."
I agree with "familial" government.
I think "ecclesial rule" expired with the priesthood and the temple in AD 70.
I think "civil" functions can be discharged by a Free Market -- capitalism, not socialism.

> Keep thinking! (Read Chuck Baldwin on Rom 13 to see why Ron Paul
> says that he is a minarchist. Then read and refute Gary DeMar
> God and Government. Then re-read Rushdoony. He is not an anarchist
> but a minarchist).

I don't need to re-read Rushdoony to figure out that he is not an anarchist.
I think I've refuted Gary DeMar's position, though I haven't interacted specifically with God and Government. See my response to John M. Frame.
I haven't read Baldwin's book, but I'll bet he hasn't read my site either.

Friday, May 10, 2013

Homosexuality and Fractional Reserve Banking

I am a Calvinist Theocrat. I believe in many ways America's first two hundred years -- beginning in the early 1600's and centered in Puritan New England -- were more virtuous than America's last two hundred years.

But my brand of Theocracy is Anarcho-Theocracy, and there were archists in Puritan New England.

I believe that if there were a Free Market in education, the vast majority of parents would send their children to Christian schools, or home school them following a Christian curriculum. Maybe that's just wishful thinking, but a market freed from government compulsion is certainly better than what we have today.

Would a Free Market in education have been better than what we had in Puritan New England? While today's education is atheistic and compulsory, New England's education was Christian and compulsory. Christianity was in many ways imposed by the Puritan State. Piety and virtue seemed to triumph.

But it seems to have been a failure in the long run. New England is now a bastion of Homosexuality and Fractional Reserve Banking.

Listen to Southern Baptist leader Albert Mohler on the geographical distribution of homosexual activism in America.

Then consider Justin Raimondo's "Afterward" to a 1984 essay by Murray N. Rothbard:
Long before the founding of the CFR or the Trilateral Commission, there was a power elite in this country; that elite will likely endure long after those organizations are gone or transmuted into something else. Rothbard's unmasking of the historical and economic roots of this trend is vital in understanding that this is not a "conspiracy" centered in the CFR and the Trilateralist groups, as such, but an ideological trend traditionally centered in the Northeast, among the upper classes, and deeply rooted in American history.
Christianity was imposed on Puritan New England by a power elite, but it was the power elite, not Christianity, that survived in the long run.

Being a part of the power elite is contrary to Christ's teachings, so the power inevitably becomes "epistemologically self-conscious," that is, anti-Christian. The more conservative, Jeffersonian states give more to the poor than the more "liberal" New England states, whose churlish banks (Isaiah 32crush the poor with fractional reserve banking, and who approve homosexuality.

Christianity does not need "the State" for successful propagation of the Gospel.


Thursday, May 02, 2013

Chickens Roosting in Boston

Listen to whistle-blower Sibel Edmunds on the Lew Rockwell Show discussing the family tree of the Boston Marathon terrorists.

Three years ago I posted links to information on "Gladio," the British-American terrorist ring mentioned by Sibel.

Americans have been brainwashed to believe that the dedicated purpose of the federal government is to protect the American people from terrorism. An argument can be made that the billions of dollars spent on TSA's airport "security" are really a form of psychological warfare against Americans themselves, rather than any serious threat to multi-millionaire Saudi terrorists like Osama bin Ladin, who can easily bribe their way past greedy civil servants to their target. Given that, a further argument can be made that the federal government spends more money and man-hours plotting and engaging in global terrorism than protecting us from it. As Sibel explains, Chinese capitalists are justified in viewing NATO as a terrorist organization, and an arm of the U.S. federal government.

Christians with a vision of Christianizing the globe need to recognize that the U.S. federal government is their greatest obstacle and enemy. It is the greatest source of evil on the planet.