Would Jesus Celebrate Memorial Day?

I hope you are not mourning the loss of a beloved soldier on this Memorial Day weekend. If you are, I mourn with you.

I hope you are not honoring anyone who chose to fight in America's military. I cannot join you in bestowing such honor.

I reserve honor for those who have chosen not to fight.

MemorialDay.VFTPeaceProject.com

If you are grieving, you may want to bookmark that webpage for another day. (Then again, you may want to use that webpage to transform your grief into indignation and action.)

If you are relaxing, partying, or enjoying a day off during this traditional beginning-of-Summer weekend, unplug the TV and take an hour to read that webpage.

Then ask that simple question: WWJD?

Jerry Falwell, 1933-2007

Back in the late 1970's I criticized Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority for not being Theocratic enough.

I criticized several textbooks written for so-called Christian schools (schools which have a morning chapel service and then teach Keynesian economics and Marxist sociology in an attempt to remain "accredited" by anti-Christian education bureaucrats) which wanted to give creationism "equal time," allowing creationism a "place at the table" with Darwinism. I said Christian schools should not try to be "neutral." Christian schools should blast Darwinism as a genocidal lie. (The Biblical Educator, Nov. 1979 [published by Gary North]).

In a book titled The Failure of the American Baptist Culture, I blasted Falwell for not being critical enough of the ACLU. (My article was published by Gary North in 1982, after being rejected by the less theocratic, more moderate R.J. Rushdoony.)

If Falwell were transported back to Lexington and Concord, 1775, and his vision and hopes for America and her schools were set before the Minutemen, they would denounce Falwell as an atheist in sheep's clothing, attempting to secularize America and create a regime more tyrannical than King George III. At best, America's Founders would think of Falwell as a compromiser.

But if America's Founders were to be transported into the 21st century, and see what Falwell was up against, they would gravitate to Falwell like ants to strawberry preserves, or Bedouins to a desert oasis. There are few Christians who were as willing as Falwell to take the heat for criticizing America's New Secular Taliban.

"Liberty Under God" was the vision that motivated America's Founders, and Falwell adovated more liberty and more Godliness than the mainstream media, academia, and "statesmen" of our day.

Thomas Jefferson, one of the most deistic of the Founders, would have no complaints about the deistic curriculum that Falwell advocated. Jefferson would have agreed with Falwell's complaints about the size of the federal government. Jefferson would denounce Falwell's secular "liberal" opponents.

Falwell hated the word "theocracy." Only his enemies used the term about him.

I support Christian Theocracy. I believe theocracy is inescapable. Every nation is a theocracy of some sort, and "secular-progressives" have created a more taliban-like regime than Falwell ever would.

Falwell deserves credit -- or at least less criticism than millions of nominal Christians or politicians who pose as Christians -- for speaking out as much as he did against America's Secular Humanist theocracy. His influence has been overstated by secularists (who out-gunned him), but his courage exceeded most Christians who run for cover whenever secularists accuse us of trying to "impose a theocracy."

Immigration and the LP Platform

I just finished another "Ozarks Virtual Town Hall," responding to the President's Saturday Morning Radio Address focusing on Immigration.

In the few minutes I had to prepare, I compared the 2004 LP Platform with the 2006 Platform, and was stunned at how un-libertarian the newer Platform had become. After 9-11, many Libertarians were afraid of appearing unreasonably pro-liberty and insensitive to public insecurity about terrorism. These Libertarians came out in favor of federal military intervention in Iraq, and suppression of liberties at home in the name of "security."

In earlier platforms, "immigration" was just another individual right, and the platform was libertarian. Now immigration is a matter of "foreign policy," that is, the "war on terror," to which individual rights must take second place.

I have compared the two platforms side-by-side here:

http://KevinCraig.us/immigration12.htm

Notice that this is part 12 of a series of webpages on immigration. It has taken that many pages to refute fascist thinking on this issue, with which too many of us have been infected.

Part 13 will be on citizenship vs. travel. This page should have been the first. The Constitution (Art I, sec. 8, cl. 4) gives power to Congress to determine citizenship requirements, not to restrict travel. For generations after the Constitution was ratified, there wasn't even any such thing as passports; people were allowed to travel freely. Most Americans today think like East Germans before the fall of the Berlin Wall. They think nothing about the government demanding "Your papers, please." We are no longer Americans, we are Nazis and Communists.

We need a libertarian platform on immigration that is so old it appears radically new.

Welfare and Immigration

Tom Martz has passed along an analogy which illustrates the real problem behind immigration: "welfare rights." Denying a human being the right to leave a corrupt drug-cartelized dictatorship and work in America is unAmerican. Denying an American employer the right to hire whomever he wishes is unAmerican. Denying American consumers the right to pay the lowest possible prices for goods and services is unAmerican.

But creating welfare dependency is unChristian.

Immigration is not a problem. "Welfare rights" is the problem. To say there exists a "right" to food, shelter, clothing, medical care, and education is to create two classes of slaves. The first group of slaves are those who cannot provide for themselves and are dependent upon their "benevolent providers." The other group of slaves are those who are forced by the State to provide these things for those who have the "right" to them.

"Welfare rights" is dehumanizing for those who allegedly possess the "rights," and dehumanizing for those who are compelled to provide them.

We should never ask the government to use force to prevent immigration. Our priority should be creating "the separation of welfare and state."

The analogy:

I bought a bird feeder. I hung it on my back porch and filled it with seed. Within a week we had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food. But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table, and next to the barbecue. Then came the poop. It was everywhere: on the patio tile, the chairs, the table ... everywhere. Then some of the birds turned mean: They would dive bomb me and try to peck me even though I had fed them out of my own pocket. And other birds were boisterous and loud: They sat on the feeder and squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and night and when it got low on food. After a while, I couldn't even sit on my own back porch anymore. I took down the bird feeder and in three days the birds were gone. I cleaned up their mess and took down the many nests they had built all over the patio Soon, the back yard was like it used to be ... quiet, serene and no one demanding their rights to a free meal.

Now lets see ... our government gives out free food, subsidized housing, free medical care, free education and allows anyone born here to be a automatic citizen. Then the illegals came by the tens of millions. Suddenly our taxes went up to pay for free services; small apartments are housing 5 families: you have to wait 6 hours to be seen by an emergency room doctor: your child's 2nd grade class is behind other schools because over half the class doesn't speak English: Corn Flakes now come in a bilingual box; I have to press "one" to hear my bank talk to me in English, and people waving flags other than "Old Glory" are squawking and screaming in the streets, demanding more rights and free liberties.

Maybe it's time for the government to take down the bird feeder.

It's not the case that we should never feed the birds. It's not the case that we should never help the needy. But our help should be informed by a long-term perspective. Michael Cloud has offered a similar analogy:

A number of years ago I visited my mom and dad. I got up one morning, wandered into the kitchen for coffee, and looked out the window at their plastic bird feeder. It was empty, and there was a little bird sittin’ there with a “So, where’s the food?” look on his face.

So I asked my mom, “Where’s the food?” and she said: “Oh, the package is under the sink, but read the instructions before you refill it.” That seemed silly - I mean, how complicated could it be?! (audience laughs) But, you know, sometimes your Mom knows best - and this was one of those times.... So, I read the instructions and this is what it said: “When your bird-feeder runs out of food, do not refill it immediately; otherwise, it will cause the birds to depend upon you and they will not learn to fend for themselves.” And, I thought: What a sad testament to America that the makers of a bird-feeder would care and understand more about self-reliance than the people who run the public schools, the people who run Social Security, and the people who voted in our welfare system!

You know, we’ve got the Statue of Liberty on one coast, but I wish we had another statue at this end of the country, here in California - a Statue of Responsibility; that would remind people that, without responsibility on one end and liberty on the other, what’s in-between isn’t worth much.

Immigration and Gun Control

It's ironic that someone who opposes gun control laws would support immigrant control laws. It's doubly ironic that the Minutemen would oppose gun control laws while defending "national sovereignty." It is triply ironic that those who oppose free immigration support the standing armies of the on-going never-ending "war on terror."

We must keep in mind that the Second Amendment was not written to protect "hunters" and "gun collectors." It was written to protect the enemies of "national sovereignty." It was written to protect those who would overthrow the government by armed revolution. Jefferson wrote:

what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.... God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion.

The Founding Fathers were concerned to protect American sovereignty from other sovereigns, not from "the People." The People retained the right to "alter or abolish" the government they created.

The addition of more people to America was seen as a bulwark of liberty against the encroachment of sovereigns; one of the complaints in the Declaration of Independence was restrictions on increased immigration:

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws of Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

Have the Minutemen bought into the anti-population propaganda of New Age Socialism/Environmentalism?

Note that I am a pacifist, and I believe armed revolution against the government is always wrong, even in 1776.

Libertarian Candidate Filters

At Saturday night's meeting of Greene County Libertarians we also discussed the idea of preventing someone from being a Libertarian candidate who did not present a good public image for the party. It is libertarian to keep someone from running as a libertarian? Or does the LP have the right to decide who will represent the Party?

Given our disagreements on the subject of immigration, what issue-filters would be appropriate? What kind of dress code should be required? Should candidates with certain tatoos be prevented from running as Libertarians?

Should LP candidates be required to sign some sort of pledge?

Even among the small number of Greene County Libertarians present at Saturday night's meeting, there was probably not a single issue, party platform plank, or policy vote that we would all agree on, even though we constituted the crème de la crème of Libertarian Party candidates. Why, Councilman Doug has already even voted for -- yes, for -- a tax! Many Libertarians who consider themselves strong opponents of gun control would flinch at legalized bazookas. Most of the best LP candidates are not consistent opponents of government. This makes construction of a universal libertarian candidate filter very subjective and difficult.

But not for this reason something we should not work for.

Greene County Libertarians: Immigration

At the monthly meeting of the Greene County Libertarians we had a stimulating discussion on strategies for newly-elected Springfield Councilman Doug Burlison's appearance at an upcoming meeting of the "racists aren't welcome" Minutemen. (I linked to Doug's campaign website. Now we need www.CouncilmanBurlison.com.)

Doug made a great point about what rights are possessed by anyone who has human DNA. Those rights include the right to travel, visit, or immigrate. On the other side of the border, those rights include the right to hire the worker with the lowest bid for labor costs. But Doug's a politician now, so he has to be careful not to alienate voters with a pure libertarian position on why all immigration laws should be abolished. He should follow the strategy on my website:

immigration.KevinCraig.us

On that page I suggested three topics to explain the immigration issue to people like the Minutemen. Good immigration policy, I said, will:

Preserve the American Identity
Protect American Sovereignty
Promote the American Economy

I'm convinced these issues can only be sorted out through vigorous debate. Dialogue works better than monologue. It also requires a good deal of patient study.

Those who claim that an "open borders" policy (abolition of immigration laws) would destroy American sovereignty need to become aware of the fact that American sovereign is already dead meat, and giving the butcher power to enforce existing immigration laws will only hasten the rotting of the corpse. What we need is not a strong government to protect us from immigrants we don't like, but the freedom to do so ourselves. Giving Washington D.C. more power only makes us more powerless. Bush claims on one day to want to strengthen the borders, and the next day he's proposing amnesty. (He's actually consistent once you realize that his agenda is not your agenda.) The best way to protect the values of liberty and the Constitution is to work for the abolition of U.S. federal sovereignty:

www.AbolishtheUSA.org

This is the most effective way to prevent the Bush-Clinton regime from abolishing what's left of the Constitution and replacing it with a regional North American Union:

www.STOPtheSPP.us

Will open borders lead to a flood of immigrants and the destruction of our economy? Not if the government welfare system is abolished first. If that would happen, a flood of immigrants and the proliferation of free trade (or "globalization") would drive our standard of living to unimaginable heights. The proof is in the work of Pepperdine Economics Professor George Reisman as well as other free market economists. I have cited Reisman's work profusely on my campaign website -- which has a 10-part series on immigration -- as well as on a new website I'm working on:

www.ChristianGlobalism.com

Unfortunately, Doug is only going to have a few minutes to completely re-educate the Minutemen -- a daunting task. Many of them believe that they will lose their jobs if uneducated immigrants are allowed to compete with them. Friend, if your job can be done by an uneducated peasant from Mexico, then you need to sharpen your job skills. Failure to do so, and success in preventing your boss from hiring an immigrant, means forcing me and the rest of America to pay too much for your services. You're increasing our costs and that hurts our economy.

Immigration is a huge issue. It requires at least an hour to study the basic economic issues involved, and several minutes to sort out the reason why the immigration rhetoric of the Bush Administration is so deceptive.

Ozarks Virtual Town Hall

Twelve hours after I got off the plane from California (having been there since March), I was getting ready for a test drive of a new campaign vehicle, "The Ozarks Virtual Town Hall."

townhall.KevinCraig.us

A replay of today's event is still available, but will soon be removed because it was just a rehearsal. Next week we'll give it another run, and soon we'll do some PR to bring in the crowds, after we get this new technology down pat.

Now accepting applications for MC, co-host, guests, and other fascinating personalities to interview on-the-air.

April Violence

The Oakland Press asks, "When it comes to national tragedies, what is it about mid-April?"

. On April 19, 1993, following a 51-day standoff, federal agents raided the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas. A fire, later determined to have been set by the Davidians, destroyed the compound and killed 57 of its residents.
. On April 19, 1995, a bomb inside a rental truck exploded at the Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, killing 168 people in what was then the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
. The killer turned out to be 27-year-old Timothy McVeigh. McVeigh's ex-Army buddy, Terry Nichols, was also charged in the crime.
. On April 20, 1999, two armed highschool seniors, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, walked through Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. In the end, 12 students, one teacher and the two murderers were dead.
. Add Monday's slaughter of 32 by a 23-year-old South Korean student at Virginia Tech to the terrible list.

The common element in all these incidents of violent aggresssion is the federal government. The government was the aggressor at Waco. The government trained the aggressors in Oklahoma (and armed the terrorists [or "patsies"] in what would later become "the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil"). The government requires the teaching of "the survival of the fittest" in public schools, the ideological motivation of the Columbine killers. And the government blames guns, not the killers, leading to a defense-free killers' paradise at schools like Virginia Tech.

April 19 is also the anniversary of Lexington and Concord, the battle that began the American Revolution, when the British attempted to seize ammunition held by the colonists. The Second Amendment was the result of this conflict, an amendment which guarantees rights -- not of hunters and gun collectors, but of opponents of tyranny and those who are carrying out what the Declaration of Independence describes as a "duty" to abolish tyrannical governments.

Mid-April is also "tax day." The American Revolution was fought over tax rates which historians estimate at between 3-5%. The Bush-Clinton regime now confiscates over ten times as much in taxes. The British government would never have dreamed of using colonial tax revenues to fund planned parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the world, and remove all copies of the Ten Commandments from government-run schools. By every conceivable measure, the U.S. Federal government is a far greater tyranny than the one overthrown in 1776, and represents the greatest source of violence in the world today.

Happy Birthday Tom!

Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743.

Gen LaGreca has posted this on George Reisman's blog. D. James Kennedy asks if Jefferson was a deist or a Christian.

Jefferson's Declaration of Independence speaks of certain "self-evident truths." These are "the doctrines of Jesus" as Jefferson called them, and are "simple, and tend all to the happiness of man":

1. That there is one only God, and He all perfect.
2. That there is a future state of rewards and punishments.
3. That to love God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself, is the sum of religion.…
Had the doctrines of Jesus been preached always as pure as they came from his lips, the whole civilized world would now have been Christian.
—To Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse. (1822) The Writings of Thomas Jefferson. Edited by Albert Ellery Bergh. 20 vols. Washington: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1907. (Memorial Edition) vol. 15, p. 383. [More]

I would venture to guess that Jefferson would recognize the practice of these "self-evident truths" in less than one percent of our current government. He would have been outraged (as Laurence M. Vance has shown) at the consuming event of our day (for which hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent): the "war on terrorism."

Perhaps (if Jefferson were alive) it would not be such a happy birthday after all.

St. Patrick: Christian Libertarian

March 17 is known as "St. Patrick's Day." Like most other once-religious holidays, most Americans -- atheists in practice -- know nothing of its Christian significance. Most Americans -- imperialists in practice -- know nothing of its libertarian significance.

Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was born in Roman Britain about AD 385, originally called Maewyn. He died on March 17 in AD 461. During these years, Christians were replacing the collapsing Roman Empire with what we today call "Western Civilization."

If you were to be transported in time back to St. Patrick's day, and had your choice, how would you choose to live:

• under the direct sway of the Roman Empire;
• under the direct sway of unconverted Irish;
• under the direct sway of a Christian monastery

"Choice," of course, was not something most people enjoyed in those days.

• Rome was an "empire" because it was imperialist, conquering people and subjugating them.
• At the age of 16, St. Patrick was sold into slavery by a group of Irish marauders that raided his British village.
• And the daily schedule of monastic work and prayer would hardly suit the do-as-I-please-whenever-I-want mentality of most Americans.

But hard work is what raises our standard of living, and prayer and faith transform slave-traders into monks.

I was going to say "businessmen" instead of "monks," but that word has negative connotations for too many Americans. Too many people feel that businessmen don't make a valuable contribution to our way of life; that they're "greedy" and fundamentally unethical. But medieval Irish monks were businessmen, inventors, farmers, scientists, and educators, as Thomas Cahill has documented in his book, How the Irish Saved Civilization. And the other alternatives -- the slave-traders of Imperial Rome or the slave-traders of pagan Ireland -- represent the antithesis of Christian Civilization.

Libertarian historian Thomas Woods has written a wonderful book that has an appeal well beyond its sectarian title: How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization.



Woods understands the distinction drawn by Franz Oppenheimer in his book The State: Its History and Development Viewed Sociologically . Oppenheimer distinguishes between "Economic Man" and "Political Man."

"Economic Man," like the Irish monks, takes natural resources and transforms them into something more useful to human beings, and under a division of labor, trades most or all of what he produces for the fruit of the labor of others. Both producers in such a voluntary trade are better off than they were before the trade.

"Political Man," on the other hand, uses force to seize the wealth produced by "Economic Man." This was the operating ideology of Imperial Rome and pagan Ireland.

St. Patrick, and Christians who followed him, laid the libertarian foundations of Western Civilization, raising Biblical family morality out of debauched pagan sexuality, and creating "Liberty Under God" by denying that the State is god.

So drink some green beer if that's your choosing, but honor St. Patrick by making sure that you're "Economic Man" rather than "Political Man."

North Korea

Consider this video:

glumbert.com - Escape from North Korea

Which of the following is the Christian character:

(a) "Yes, I work for the government arresting those who try to escape, but I need to feed my family. The Bible says if you don't take care of your family you're worse than an infidel (1 Timothy 5:8). Government is ordained by God (Romans 13). I'm just doing my job."

(b) "I have the right to bear arms. I don't care if those commmies kill me. Better dead than Red. And I'll take as many as I can with me."

(c) "If I turned down all government contracts and subsidies, my business would go under. The Bible says if you don't take care of your family you're worse than an infidel (1 Timothy 5:8). Government is ordained by God (Romans 13). I'm just doing my job."

(d) "Yes, I know it's illegal to give them food. I'll keep helping them until the government executes me."

(e) Add your suggestion for "e" as a comment.

MEK

During every campaign, I am asked by various organizations if I support them, and they inform their constituencies of my position. Last year I was contacted by MEK, Mujahideen al-Khalq, an organization that opposes the current regime in Iran. They had been listed as a "terrorist" organization by the State Department, but a number of Congressmen, including Tom Tancredo, disputed this designation and supported MEK. The MEK has provided the United States with "valuable intelligence information on Iran," and has rejected Islamic fundamentalism.

A publication that reports on Congress, The Hill, has commented on support for MEK among some in Congress.

More recently, William Grigg has described MEK as "a bizarre terrorist cult whose official ideology is a fusion of Marxism and Sufism,' noting that "The Warmakers in and around the Bush Regime have embraced the MEK as an ally in the low-intensity war underway between Washington and Tehran."

Sam Adams and George Washington would have been called "terrorists" in 1776 if the word had been fashionable in Britain, so State Department denunciations will not seal my opposition to any group. In fact, the opposite is more likely true, and any organization which can be described as an "ally" in any of Washington D.C.'s many unconstitutional "low-intensity wars" has my suspicion, if not my condemnation.

I won't "oppose" any group that opposes the current Iranian regime, but as a candidate for Congress, I will not "support" any group that does not support the endangered Libertarian party pledge:

I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of force as a means of achieving political or social goals.

It appears that MEK repudiates this commitment.

Death to Valentine!

The Hidden History of VALENTINE'S DAY -- Murder and Empire