At least he did in Book IV, Chapter 20 of Calvin’s “Institutes of the Christian Religion.” I am aware of one passage from other commentaries of Calvin’s on Romans 13 which teaches something slightly different. I’ll deal with that later. I’m basing this claim entirely on Calvin’s teachings in Institutes.
His teachings there could not have been clearer. Based on them, the Declaration of Independence is a 100% anti-Calvinist document; that is, if “Calvinism” stopped with Calvin.
Arguably it didn’t. Later “Calvinists” like Samuel Rutherford and Philippe de Mornay, apparently (and for obvious reasons) not satisfied having to live out Calvin’s teachings on submitting to political tyranny, made the most out of Calvin’s idea of “interposition,” and expanded it in the “living” philosophical sense (i.e., “living Calvinism,” “living Constitutionalism,” etc.), such that results could be achieved of which Calvin himself would not have approved.
Though I’m less familiar with their works than I am Calvin’s, they still, like Calvin, stopped short of approving of “revolt.” Rather, if the King violated the law, since “law was King,” we could follow the law not the unlawful actions of a King. That’s what Rutherford taught in Lex Rex. That’s NOT what Calvin taught. And even Rutherford’s more generous (than Calvin’s) teachings do not countenance revolt. Continue Reading »
the fight for things like health care reform and cap and trade is that they potentially challenge the more depressing predictions of public choice theory. In other words, these major reforms would (if enacted) challenge the notion that democracies are primarily controlled by narrow interest groups.
Specifically, Publius is referring to “the idea that intensely-committed minorities run the show in majoritarian democracies.”
I like the Obsidian Wings blog, and frankly it’s a bit unfair to pick up on an almost year-old post and critique it, but I’m a Public Choice person myself, and like Thompson, “I must respectfully dissent.” First, Public Choice theory doesn’t make the hard claim that non-passionate majorities always lose to passionate minorities, but the softer claim that they are better positioned to either a) kill legislation they don’t like or b) influence its final shape to the point where it’s relatively palatable to them.* That being the case, any single win for a dispassionate majority hardly disproves Public Choice theory, any more than a loss in one tournament disproves Tiger Woods’ claim to be the top golfer in the world today. The frequency of outcomes that cut against the Public Choice prediction is what matters, or to put it another way, the proportion of successful bills in which the Public Choice prediction fails. Continue Reading »
This Texas Controversy compounded with the years of meticulous study I’ve done on religion & the American Founding got me thinking about what K-12 students should be taught.
The problem is history is complex and there are great complex nuances to the religion & the American Founding issue. Given rational fear of K-12 historical ignorance I conclude we should be concerned they learn 1) raw facts, and 2) narratives both sides should be able to agree on, narratives “experts” like me might find too simple, but K-12 students might not.
Issues such as “was George Washington a Christian?” compounded with “what is the proper definition of Christian and does orthodox Trinitarian doctrine have anything to do with it?” are WAY beyond the call of what K-12 students should be expected to understand. Rather, we should expect them to be able to accurately recite who were the first X Presidents, what dates did they take office, where were they born and so on. Continue Reading »
Feral Genius, Jennifer Abel has an infuriating rant at the Guardian about an Arizona woman who was kicked out of her house for using solar panels and an icebox, running afoul of codes requiring her to have real electricity and a refrigerator.
“We explained to her that the [solar] panels weren’t enough to sustain a quality of life there,” Avondale’s code enforcement manager said.
Well, sure, who better to determine whether your quality of life is sustainable than someone who isn’t you?
Or as Jennifer says,
When you’re worried about someone’s quality of life, adding them to the ranks of the homeless might not be the best way to improve it, but it’s close enough for government work.
Let’s take a look at this latest update to the market vs. government tote board shall we?
Market: Make it possible for someone to live a comfortable life more frugally.
Government: Kick someone out of their home for trying to live more frugally.
.
Well, I guess the liberals are right that government can correct the market’s errors.
I receive the regular email update, The Lighthouse, of the Independent Institute, a West Coast libertarian think-tank. I like the Independent Institute, and I like economic arguments, but this time they laid a major egg, in economist William Shughart’s argument against daylight-savings time, in a BusinessWeek Pro and Con.
Physicist Richard Feynman coined the term “cargo cult science” to describe work that has the superficial appearance of science, but that lacks “a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty—-a kind of leaning over backwards.” Shughart, I hate to say, despite being a Professor of Economics with a very respectable resume, engages in cargo cult economics in his argument against Daylight Savings Time. Continue Reading »
A little while ago I raised the issue of whether it’s okay to poke fun at the stereotypes of religious groups. I got responses like whereas race is 100% immutable and unchosen, religion is 100% chosen, 100% about beliefs and therefore “fit” to be mocked.
I think this view misses that we are talking about people who are members of social groups. And regardless of whether the basis for that social group is 100% genetic/immutable (race), 100% about chosen beliefs (religion), or something more complicated (i.e., being Jewish or gay) someone’s social group basis merits some degree of respect as a citizen.
It is ironic, I note, that one group — conservative Christians — whose status is far more chosen and mutable than the other group — gays — tend to argue that gays aren’t a real “social group” because their status really isn’t “immutable.”
As a fair minded libertarian pluralist I believe — forget all of this fancy debate about mutable, immutable, chosen whacko religious beliefs and chosen perverted behavior — if you are a part of a peaceful productive group of citizens as most gays, blacks and conservative Christians are — you are a legitimate “social group.” Continue Reading »
Brayton called that interpretation “profoundly contrary to the historical record.”
“John Jay, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison wrote the Federalist Papers to explain each and every provision of the Constitution to a population that was overwhelmingly Christian and convince them to vote for it. If they could have pointed to biblical sources for those provisions, that would have been a very powerful argument in favor of ratification. Yet not once is the Bible mentioned anywhere in those 85 essays. And not once, according to the notes of those in attendance, was the Bible ever referenced at the constitutional convention in Philadelphia to justify a concept or provision,” according to Brayton.
The Prince chapter 7: Of New Dominions Acquired by the Power of Others or by Fortune.”
This chapter, in any normally partitioned work, would not be separate from the prior one. Chapter 6 discussed dominions won both by one’s own ability and via the powers of others, with examples of the former. This chapter discusses the same thing, but with examples of the latter. The structure is somewhat unusual, but it works well, at least for me.*
Let those then who are attached to the doctrine of the Trinity, try whether they cannot hit upon some method or other of reconciling a few particular texts, not only with common sense, but also with the general and the obvious tenour of the Scriptures themselves. In this they will, no doubt, find some difficulty at first, from the effect of early impressions, and association of ideas; but an attention to the true idiom of the scripture language, with such helps as they may easily find for the purpose, will satisfy them that the doctrine of the Trinity furnishes no proper clue to the right understanding of these texts, but will only serve to mislead them.
In the mean time, this doctrine of the Trinity wears so disagreeable an aspect, that I think every reasonable man must say with the excellent Archbishop Tillotson,* with respect to the Athanasian Creed, “I wish we were well rid of it.” This is not setting up reason against the Scriptures, but reconciling reason with the Scriptures, and the Scriptures with themselves. On any other scheme, they are irreconcileably at variance.
I’ve been researching the religion of notable Founding Father William Livingston, a signer of the Constitution and former governor of New Jersey. In my last post on the matter, I noted Livingston slammed the Athanasian creed — the quintessential Trinitarian creed which the unitarians of America’s Founding era criticized.
Researching the matter further, I came across Livington’s personal Thirty Nine Articles on religion which again slammed the Athanasian creed (and thereby the Trinity). Those and Livington’s other writings found in the Independent Reflector can be found in this book. Continue Reading »
As further proof that libertarianism belongs to neither Team Red nor Team Blue, and notwithstanding dubious historical, legal and religious claims the Board has insisted upon, I’m pleased to see there’s some good news in the approved curriculum, too. To wit:
In economics, the revisions add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free-market economic theory, among the usual list of economists to be studied, like Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes. They also replaced the word “capitalism” throughout their texts with the “free-enterprise system.”
Also, the Times reports:
The board, whose members are elected, has influence beyond Texas because the state is one of the largest purchasers of textbooks. In the digital age, however, that influence has been diminished as technological advances have made it possible for publishers to tailor books to individual states.
Let’s have a round of applause for the digital age!
I hate Facebook. Facebook gives me Friends, but all I really want are friends.
I feel like I have to have Facebook because everyone expects me to have it. Going without Facebook is sort of like going without a phone back in the 1980s. You just barely can’t do it. Facebook is much worse than a phone, though, because you’ve always been free to ignore your phone with no guilt whatsoever. Back in the 80’s you wouldn’t even necessarily have an answering machine, and that was some serious freedom. Facebook doesn’t run on freedom. It runs on guilt.
My mother-in-law has this habit of starting conversations with all the things she assumes I’ve seen on Facebook. “I guess you probably saw that L—– is getting over her car accident,” she says. “You should visit her sometime.”
“I didn’t know she’d had an accident. Was it bad?”
My mother-in-law is appalled. “How do you not know about it?” Continue Reading »
It’s a rare enough occurrence, although not unknown, that it’s worth pointing out. The judge allegedly lied under oath and accepted payoffs. The vote in the House was unanimous, which is gratifying. He was appointed by Clinton, but the Democrats aren’t about to take a fall for a mere District Court judge.
Eugene Volokh posts the articles of impeachment at the Conspiracy.
Will Porteous resign before there can be a trial in the Senate? I’m sure the Senators would appreciate not having to take time to prepare for and conduct a trial. As would Obama, presumably, since it would be just one more obstacle in the path of accomplishing his legislative agenda.
Based on this report from the Congressional Research Service, it looks as though Porteous would retain his pension if he resigned, but not if he is convicted in the Senate. However that judgment seems to be based only on a DOJ opinion from 1974, concerning Nixon. Since the Constitution is silent on the issue of pensions, and there’s been no authoritative Court ruling, I’d say the jury–so to speak–is still out on that issue.
There is a persistent tendency among educators, and left-leaning folks in general, to claim that education is a distinct type of good, so that unlike other goods, a competitive market is an inferior way to produce it.
As to whether or not education is a distinct good, I think it certain ways it is, but I’m not knowledgeable enough on economic theory to know whether it matters or not. I would argue that education is different than some other goods because there is a major vested interest in its success as a whole.
First let me say that my formulation was inexcusably sloppy. There is a category of goods that competitive markets do not produce well—public goods. Continue Reading »
Since making a bet on a movie so is about the closest any of us will ever get to being actual show business producers, here’s possibly the funniest four minutes in the history of motion pictures (the next five minutes are pretty good, too):
