Positive Liberty

Speaking of promising political careers, I give you 13 year old Ralph Hardy who ordered a duplicate credit card on his father’s account and used it for a $30,000 spree with friends that ended in a Texas hotel room with $1000 hookers playing Halo on XBox.

What separates Ralph and his friends from your run-of-the-mill juvenile thieves, you ask? When the prostitutes balked because he and his friends seemed so young, they told the women they were “people of restricted growth” and that refusing them would be illegal discrimination against the disabled!

I am in awe.

Bravo to Chardon Township, Ohio for turning down $10,000 in disaster aid from FEMA following a March snowstorm. Township Trustee Chuck Strazinsky explained it was a typical snowstorm unworthy of federal aid and that the money should be reserved for true emergencies, whereas Township Trustee Steve Borowski disagreed, saying help from the federal government shouldn’t be turned down. Alas, Mr. Borowski probably has the far more promising political career.

One of the talking points of the wingnuts is America is a republic not a democracy. Although a few folks I respect have said such (notably Walter Williams), most folks who parrot this line don’t know what they are talking about. America is and was founded to be a democracy, a liberal democracy in fact. “Democracy” simply means “voting” — if there are legitimate elections, then there is “democracy.” (If the elections are a sham, then it’s a “banana republic” so to speak.) America’s Constitution provides for elections, ergo America is a democracy. The term small l “liberal” simply means there are individual rights that majorities cannot abridge. So that’s liberal democracy in a nutshell. Elections by the majority with individual rights that the majority cannot abridge. Continue Reading »

I’m reading some issues of Libertarian Forum from the late 70s and early 80s. In my defense, it’s work-related.

But I’m finding that it’s just sad, ugly reading — lots of infighting about issues that seem tangential or irrelevant, with little to offer an outsider about the value of having a Libertarian Party at all. Sometimes the articles don’t even explain why these people are fighting each other in the first place, leaving me rather mystified. And that’s saying quite a lot, coming from a guy who has just spent the last year of his life helping to edit the Encyclopedia of Libertarianism.

I look at the great philosophy of liberty, and the promise it offers mankind. And then I look at this stuff, and I want to weep.

It occurs to me that if you’re a Democratic or a Republican political insider and you’re trying to milk the system for personal gain, the best way to do this is to work hard for electoral victory. You can expect to win fairly often, whereupon your loyalty will be rewarded by an appointment to the bureaucracy, to a legislator’s staff, or to a cushy ambassadorship (Ned L. Siegel, our ambassador to the Bahamas, was a plaintiff in George W. Bush’s lawsuit to stop the Florida recount. He also donated tens of thousands of dollars in Republican campaign money. I won’t say he’s in it only for himself, but the appeal to someone who is should be obvious).

But if you’re an insider to the Libertarian Party, and if you’re wanting to advance, you can’t look forward to many election victories, and these few won’t carry too many appointed posts for party stalwarts, either. In a minor party, the way to use politics selfishly is to take over the organization, and that’s going to mean stepping on some toes.

Thesis: Bureaucracy does a lot of bad things, but it does domesticate the insiders of the major parties. Minor parties are beset by infighting in part because the electoral stakes are so low for them, while the pre-electoral fights — against fellow party members — are the only decisive ones in terms of advancement.

Second data point: The Green party of the United States. The political principles could hardly be more removed, but the social dynamics seem about the same, no? Rojas, you’re watching the LP convention a lot more closely than I will be. What do you think?

Google has digitized the entire volume of Bird Wilson’s “Memoir of the Life of the Right Reverend William White.” White was an Episcopal Bishop and presided over the church in Philadelphia George Washington attended as President. He gives key eyewitness testimony that Washington systematically avoided communion in his church. He also testifies that Washington didn’t kneel when praying and kept his mouth shut on his religious specifics. His assessment is fair and balanced; he doesn’t as did the minister in that church, Dr. James Abercrombie, claim this meant Washington was a Deist or not a “real Christian.” But he doesn’t make excuses for Washington either. Pages 188-200 reveal a number of his letters on the matter.

Dr. Benjamin Rush was one of the earliest notable American opponents of the Death Penalty. As will be seen, his anti-capital punishment position was derived from his understanding of the Bible. Regarding his theology, Rush described it as “a compound of the orthodoxy and heterodoxy of most of our Christian churches.” Basically, formerly a Calvinist, he converted to Arminianism, remained orthodox on matters of original sin, the trinity, incarnation, and atonement, but believed in universal salvation through Christ’s universal atonement. In short, he was a liberal Trinitarian Christian Universalist.

You can read the primary source on googlebooks, indeed a book so old that the “s’s” still look like “f’s.” He notes the case of the woman about to be stoned to death for adultery — a capital crime in Old Testament times — where Jesus forbade her execution. Though Rush doesn’t explicate it, the literal meaning of Jesus’ words “Let he who is WITHOUT sin,” suggests that only God (or if Jesus were not God, a uniquely sinless human like him) is qualified to implement capital punishment. WITHOUT Sin. Not “you may have problems of your own, you hypocrite,” but WITHOUT Sin.

Here is a short passage from Rush’s writings. By all means, read the entire context.

[W]hile I am able to place a finger, upon this text of scripture, I will not believe an angel from heaven, should he declare that the punishment of death, for any crime, was inculcated, or permitted by the spirit of the gospel.

It’s the same theologically liberal hermeneutic of, instead of appealing to specific “proof texts,” abstracting general principles from the “spirit” of scripture to reach specific conclusions not mentioned therein, that also made the Christian case against slavery. The Bible nowhere specifically abolishes slavery; to the contrary many specific texts recognize its validity. It’s only by taking the principle that because all men are created in God’s image, they are equal, and then applying that to slavery, that the “spirit” of the Bible likewise can be said to be anti-slavery as it is anti-death penalty.

The death penalty and slavery are good examples of social issues where the Bible gives no clear cut answer and texts can be offered on both sides. (On slavery, I’m inclined to argue the Bible is a pro-slavery book, or at least one utterly unconcerned with its abolition.) History, not hermeneutics, answers the question. History has answered the question with slavery; it’s still out on the death penalty.

Alexander Hamilton’s “The Farmer Refuted” is a classic piece of American literature justifying rebellion against Great Britain. Less well known is the fact that Hamilton was replying to Tory loyalist, the Reverend Samuel Seabury, the first American Episcopal bishop. This page collects the pieces of literature to which Hamilton was responding. I’m fairly certain it was the third one down, this one, to which Hamilton specifically responded.

Regarding the theological implications of the letters, I’ve already conceded traditional Christianity to be compatible with both sides. When Hamilton wrote “The Farmer Refuted” in 1775 he didn’t have any kind of established record as an orthodox Christian, while Seabury, as an Anglican minister, certainly did.

The content of “The Farmer Refuted” certainly has nothing to do with the Bible or Christianity but rather relies on theistic naturalism and rationalism to advance its claims. In short, it is an Enlightenment, not a Christian document. Here are some highlights: Continue Reading »

Rev. John MacArthur is sort of a poster boy for traditional, Calvinistic, fundamentalist Christian theology. He also commands the highest respected within those circles. When notable evangelicals and Catholics signed a statement forming a socially conservative political alliance, he was one of the first to caution against the potential blurring of their profound theological differences. And he has chastised Billy Graham (and the Pope) for intimating that non-Christians perhaps will be saved. He also teaches literal 6-day creation. In short, he is the antithesis of a theological liberal. And this theology is not my cup of tea, at all.

As I’ve noted before, one thing I admire about MacArthur is the way he keeps his faith pure from political whoring, the consequences be damned. His understanding of Romans 13 demands concluding that the American Revolution was conceived in sin, that the Declaration of Independence is an anti-biblical document. I will charitably conceded alternate literal interpretations of Romans 13; I just want the other side to understand the strong biblical grounds for MacArthur’s view and the longstanding tradition it has in orthodox hermeneutics. Continue Reading »

Today is the National Day of Prayer. Here is the groups website, complete with the mythical picture of George Washington, on his knees praying at Valley Forge (Washington was a man of prayer, but didn’t pray on his knees; the reason why I say it’s mythical is because scholars have debunked that the incident ever occurred). I don’t know much about this group. To the extent that it is a private organization I don’t care about what it does or how it prays. However to the extent that this group is endorsed by government, it should be praying in generic monotheistic prayers only because that, not Christian theology, is what America is founded on.

The first four Presidents, Ben Franklin and Abe Lincoln never publicly prayed in Jesus’ name (neither do we have records in their private writings doing so). Further, they believed in natural religion, which holds all good men of all religions (regardless of whether they are “Judeo-Christian”) worship the same God. It was this natural religion that gave “all good men” access to the Deity that was key to forming America’s public theology.

In his column Roy Moore recognizes that generic prayers are not consistent with orthodox Christian theology.

Sadly, too many judges today like to call prayer and other civil acknowledgments of God mere “ceremonial deism,” a historic relic that has no “religious” significance. In fact, in cases involving public prayer in courts and legislative bodies, only those traditions that have decades or more of history behind them tend to survive legal challenge. Unfortunately, that means that only empty, generic references to God are allowed.

Jesus called such lip service “hypocrisy” when the Pharisees exalted their man-made traditions above the true worship of God.

“Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias (Isaiah) prophesy of you, saying, ‘This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.’ (Matt. 15:7-9)”

Accordingly, Moore is in a state of denial or ignorance about America’s Founders’ actual political theology. “The founders prayed because they believed in a real God who could actually meet their needs.” Moore cites George Washington, Ben Franklin and Abe Lincoln as figures to support his thesis. Presumably he believes they invoked the “real God.” As mentioned none of them publicly (or do the records show privately) prayed in Jesus name. All systematically used generic philosophical titles for God. Moore is confused by the fact that they could also use biblical allusion when speaking to Christian audiences. As Moore recounted:

Benjamin Franklin, remembering these daily prayers, reminded the Constitutional Convention 13 years later of the need for “imploring the assistance of heaven” lest their proceedings fare “no better than the Builders of Babel.”

The problem is Moore and the Christian America crowd interpret the use of biblical allusion such as Franklin’s to mean they believed in the one true Biblical God, whose way is exclusive. Wrong. Franklin was, like the other key Founders, a theological unitarian who believed all good men worshipped the same God. As such they could speak in biblical allusion one minute and then turn around and speak as if Muslims and unconverted Native Americans worshipped the same God they did. This may not be “ceremonial deism” as the secularists articulate it. But it arguably nonetheless qualifies as the kind of generic religion that the Bible criticizes. And it is what America’s public institutions are founded on, like it or not.

Here’s a fascinating exchange between Kerry Howley and Timothy Sandefur regarding the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints (noted previously here and here). I should add that subsequent details about police and court procedure both before and after the raid on the FLDS compound have been very troubling to me, making me doubt my previous, uncomplicated endorsement of the state’s actions.

However, being troubled by both the state and the FLDS does not make one any less a radical for individualism. It’s perfectly conceivable that giving more control to either one means that individualism loses. Highly controlling environments like the FLDS may indeed approach the status of a government, Howley argues, and I’m certainly prepared to think of them this way. But then, there’s an actual government on the scene, too, and it’s worth worrying about that as well.

I’ve also long thought that libertarianism is the most humane way to view adults in society, but that it breaks down when applied to children. This need not be a problem with libertarianism in itself, but only an admission that all great explanatory models have their limits. One simply can’t presume that a child has the autonomy or independent decisionmaking skills necessary to act as an agent of her own self-interest. This is what libertarianism demands of adults, and I believe that virtually all adults can do it, even if many adults aren’t willing to, and even if many others are convinced that they can run other people’s lives just a little bit better. The adults who want to run things they shouldn’t are the more profound or radical challenges to libertarianism; for libertarians, deciding the status of children will always be at best a question of where to draw the borders, not a challenge to the fundamentals.

I don’t have much of a problem, then, in saying that children have a limited set of positive rights — that is, of social obligations that adults need to provide to them, for a limited time, until they reach adulthood. A newborn baby can’t feed itself, after all, and from that point forward children in some sense must have positive rights, otherwise we would simply be bringing them into the world to let them die — an absurdity.

It’s not at all ridiculous to think that children also have to be taught how to use their rationality. They must be taught to speak and to read, at the bare minimum. These things aren’t automatic, and so much less are highly abstract concepts like freedom, justice, or the rule of law.

I am well aware that there is some paradox involved in an authority figure teaching a child to value independence and even to question authority figures. But this kind of teaching is clearly not impossible. Clearly some societies have done a good job of this kind of teaching, while many others have taught near-total submission to authority. To keep the freedoms that we have, it is important that our children learn the values of liberty — among them being able to question received social conventions.

Worth noting: Much of the best children’s and young-adult literature does this very well. Consider “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” “Horton Hears a Who!” and (though not all) of Robert Heinlein’s young-adult fiction. This is not to say of course that the FLDS is out there teaching their kids — as I will — to think for themselves. It’s only to note that the love of liberty isn’t mystically acquired out of the ether.

Update: Howley responds, reminding readers of the other side of intensively polygynous marriage — the discarded boys. If you don’t throw them out by the dozen, the math just doesn’t add up. She quotes from this AP story:

Damned by his religion, denied by his family and left with nowhere else to go, the teenager slept in a cold tool shed just steps from a company owned by his relatives.

They went home at night to warm, cozy beds while Tom Sam Steed stole bread, cereal and nutrition bars from a gas station just to survive. He tried, several times, to kill himself, convinced that he was worth nothing.

His salvation came when he got a job cleaning carpets and finally left the control of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and its leader, Warren Jeffs.

Former members describe a religion that thrives on domination. Every detail of their life was scripted—from plural marriages to what they could wear, who they could associate with and what job they could have. In the last 4 1/2 years, more than 400 teenage boys have been excommunicated, many for seemingly minor infractions such as watching a movie or talking to a girl.

“You’re taught that everyone out here is corrupt and evil,” Steed said. “You have no idea how life works, no idea how to survive in modern society.” They are, after all, only teens, but now they are on their own.

I hope this doesn’t sound sexist, but our society would never tolerate this being done to girls. And I hope this doesn’t sound like overly facile atheism, but our society likewise would never tolerate this if the agent were a business rather than a religion.

I think it would be fantastic if the federal government could be made smaller than, oh, say… this blog.

Achieving my goal would entail a massive decrease in the size of the government, a massive increase in the social resources devoted to this blog (and to compensating the authors!), or some amount of both. Obviously either would be a very good thing.

Yet Technorati says that my dream may already be a reality: In blogosphere influence, this blog is already bigger than the federal government’s blog.

Your tax dollars would like to inform you, in their small, uninfluential voice, that allergies are no fun and — oh the irony — that it sucks to have your wallet stolen. Also, don’t kill the widdle fuzzy aminuls.

Tom Van Dyke leaves a thoughtful comment on whether the God of the American Founding is the God of Abraham:

I’m not aware of any other monotheistic, providential Creator God that can be remotely construed to endow man with certain unalienable rights.

All this talk of syncretism must acknowledge that the syncresis took place within a very narrow milieu of a Judeo-Christian European culture with, admittedly, the acknowledged philosophical influence of the Enlightenment and the Greeks [with a dash of the Romans thrown in].

But there is no new God of the Enlightenment except perhaps for man himself, and the gods of the Romans and Greeks are nowhere to be found here except on the edges, and only rhetorically.

The God of the Founding is not a new one, fabricated from whole cloth. He may not be Abraham’s, strictly speaking, but He is none other, either.

I see his point — that though America’s Founders pretended the Native Americans with their “Great Spirit,” the Hindus, the pagan-Greco-Romans, and other non-Judeo-Christian faiths worshipped a common “Providence,” carefully examining the attributes of these non-Judeo-Christian deities belies such a notion. Michael Novak makes a similar point that an active, personal, intervening monotheistic God is uniquely characteristic of Judaism and Christianity (he doesn’t add Islam, but I will). Continue Reading »

Here is the first chapter from John Dilulio’s “Godly Republic.”

I agree that his centrist-civil religion approach is consistent with America’s Founding (that America’s public institution’s presuppose a Supreme Being, and therefore supplications to such ought to be constitutional). However, I think the scholarly case made by such figures as Steven Waldman and Jon Meacham is more accurate. Here is Dilulio’s thesis:

The truth, however, is that present-day America is blessed to be in religious terms pretty much what Madison and most of the other framers intended it to be. It is a godly republic with governmental institutions that (as Justice Douglas phrased it) “presuppose” monotheistic belief in the “Supreme Being” known to Jews, Christians, and Muslims as the God of Abraham. It is a godly republic that affords a special civic status to nondenominational and interfaith (God-centered) religious expression. It is a godly republic that respects, promotes, and protects religious pluralism: Methodists, Muslims, Mormons, and all other faiths are welcome. It is a godly republic in which both the Constitution and federal laws prohibit government from discriminating against citizens who profess no faith at all (atheists have the same constitutional standing as Anglicans) or who are actively, but peacefully, hostile to all religion or to all church-state collaboration (Americans United for the Separation of Church and State is no more or less entitled to tax-exempt nonprofit status than the National Association of Evangelicals).

Continue Reading »

Divided We Stand supports divided government. I do too — divided government slows things down, and we desperately need to slow down the pace of government encroachment into civil society.

But here’s the dilemma, and it’s not an easy one:

The libertarian swing vote, organized around the concept of divided government, was instrumental in determining the outcome of the 2006 mid-term election. If this election becomes a Democratic Party rout, then the libertarian swing vote simply will not matter, it’ll just get swamped. However, if it is a close election, it could be determinative in 2008 as it was in 2006. If - and it is a big “If” - the libertarian swing vote remains consistent and committed to divided government. While it is the right question to ask, I suggest it is too early to ask it. We need to get past the Democratic primary sideshow, find out who the candidate will be, and learn whether events in Basra will overtake the the campaigns.

MW of Divided We Stand also frames the question by quoting Todd Seavey as follows:

So, to my libertarian friends who are either indifferent to the Dem/GOP distinction or who actively root for “divided government”: Are you still happier with a Democratic rather than Republican Congress after the Dems’ torpedoing of a free trade deal with Colombia — the sort of deal that at least some of my Dem/GOP-indifferent libertarian pals have rightly pointed to as more important than tiny variations in the size of the federal budget and thus a good indicator of whether the government is moving in the right direction? And if you still prefer divided government, are you consistent enough to be eagerly rooting for McCain rather than for NAFTA-bashing Obama/Clinton? Or, if not, are you de facto supporters of the Democrats (and thus opponents of trade — and thus not clearly libertarians) when you get right down to it?”

It’s a tough question. It’s worth noting that some libertarians incline against free trade via treaties and would have us just unilaterally drop all of our own trade barriers, regardless of what other countries may do. These libertarians’ economic case is rock-solid, but their practical political sense amounts to a lot of wishful thinking. I tend to favor trade deals of the type that recently failed, because even incremental improvements still make a real difference in the well-being of actual human individuals. Trade isn’t purely a theoretical matter, and if it means helping more poor people right now, then I’m all for it. I’m likewise very disappointed at both Obama and Clinton on NAFTA, and on this issue I find myself wishing that Bill, rather than Hillary, were the one running for president.

But all this ignores an important and maybe decisive issue, regardless of what one thinks about trade — the war in Iraq. I do not think that continuing this war does much to help anyone, whether here, or in Iraq, or anywhere else, except perhaps that it helps the leadership of Iran. It may in fact be worth voting against a free-trade candidate if it ends the war sooner rather than later. This is a difficult dilemma, and saying that libertarians are anti-free trade for being anti-war is rather like remarking on the generosity of the man who hands over his wallet rather than being stabbed. Neither is an appealing alternative, but the menu of choices… is limited.

I have to say I’m very angry that the Democrats in Congress have done squat to get us out out of Iraq. On this I may also be a victim of wishful thinking (kinda goes with being a libertarian, I hear), but it’s possible that if the Dems had the White House too, we would see an end to the war during the next administration. It’s not definite, but it’s far more likely I think than with McCain as president.

So… depending on one’s priorities, a libertarian swing voter who assumes the Democrats will extend their control of Congress has two choices:

a) Divided government, with McCain as president, NAFTA likely unchallenged, no new trade treaties forthcoming (thanks, Democrats!), and the Iraq War continuing indefinitely. The Republican “security” state marches on unbowed.

b) Unified government, with Obama as the likely president, NAFTA facing a challenge of yet-to-be-determined strength, a socialized healthcare bill that will be deeply repugnant to every libertarian political principle, and the Iraq War possibly — gosh we hope — coming to its inevitable end sooner rather than later.

When you throw in McCain’s antilibertarian views on campaign finance, national greatness, and the like, the choice is (yet again) Southparkesque. (Footnote: McCain in office with a veto-proof Democratic majority may yield many of the bad effects of McCain-Bushism as well as a socialized healthcare bill, and great harms done to free trade, both passed over the president’s veto. This would be the worst of all worlds.)

Seavey adds:

I would just like occasional acknowledgment, though, of the fact that the Dems are the consciously anti-market party, not just the hypocritically-and-absent-mindedly-statist party that the GOP is becoming.

But I don’t think that the Republicans are being absent minded. And if they are being hypocritical, then we should be doubly disappointed in them, because at least they know the case for small-government well enough to fake it, and this ought to mean that they are capable of understanding it. Further, libertarians should want to punish anyone who gives their philosophy a bad name. (Would that this were applied more consistently, and to certain minor parties as well as the major ones, but there I go again with that wishful thinking stuff.)

Yet Seavey is completely right that there’s a strong divided-government case to be made for voting for McCain, a case I made some months ago about a different but also distasteful Republican.

The simple answer is that none of the candidates are appealing, that they are bad for different reasons, that to my mind McCain is the worst of the lot, but that we don’t have a Republican-controlled Congress that would make voting for a Democrat the divided-government strategy.

Now for two easy dodges. You’ll thank me for not taking either of them:

1. I live in Maryland, which goes to the Democrat no matter what I do.

2. I can’t rule out voting for (or against) the yet-to-be-determined Libertarian candidate.

And the final verdict is… I’m still undecided. Divided government is a very, very powerful incentive to vote Republican, but it may well be the only one.

The Alabama homebrewer visited by ABC agents has given up the hobby, a local beer activism bulletin board reports:

Scott [Oberman] met with the agent and was told that there was a complaint filed in Montgomery. He was given a copy of the Alabama code and that was pretty much the end of it. However, he has decided to give up homebrewing until such time as it is legal. Now that he is on the radar, he has too much to lose if they decide to make another visit.

It’s enough to make a northerner want to travel down south (not necessarily on a bus), set up some brewing equipment, and systematically break the law.