Archive for the 'Philosophy' Category

This is the Kind of Silliness We’re Up Against: Rand Paul and Rachel Maddow

Written by Colin. Published on May 20, 2010 ago in Current Events, Philosophy and Politics. 51 Comments

Rand Paul, fresh off an overwhelming victory over an establishment republican is already getting attacked by the left. What are they attacking him on?

His disagreement with 10% of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Yes. Nothing about any relevant modern legislation. Nothing about actual policy to be implemented. Rather, they are trying to pin him as a racist because he doesn’t agree that private businesses should have their free speech and property rights abridged.

Watch Rachel Maddow harangue him for a quarter of an hour as he calmly tries to explain why property rights are more important than positive rights to not be discriminated against.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3O2rBz9gwo[/youtube]

Part 2

Paul even goes as far to point out exactly what Maddow is doing: trying to use a deep philosophical discussion about the nature of racism, property rights and free-speech to score a political point which media hacks can put on repeat for the rest of the general election.

Philosophical libertarians, conservatives and even philosophical liberals need to be alert and aware about these kinds of tactics. They are the largest barrier to anyone other than a shifty, people pleasing shiester getting into political office.

Rand Paul, and others like him, are just too smart for hacks like Maddow who cannot and will not consider that something with such a noble name like “the civil rights act” may contain provisions that actually do more damage and cause more problems then they solve. Is there any question that it is right to fight racism? Of course it is. But to fight racism by infringing more fundamental, basic rights needs a deep and tempered philosophical discussion.

How Many Evangelical Christians Have Been Neo-Conned

Written by Colin. Published on March 18, 2010 ago in Essays, Philosophy, Politics, Religion and Theology. 6 Comments

The Austrian Scholars Conference 2010 has now concluded and the paper by Dr Kevin Clauson on “Why Evangelicals Don’t Like Austrian Political Economy—But Should” is essential listening for just about any Christian. Dr Clauson was kind enough to send me along a draft to make writing this article easier. Please feel free to read it (NOTE: THIS IS A DRAFT COPY, posted with permission from the author). Also, listen to the paper (30 mins.).

Clauson has spent time both at Liberty University (22 years, most of them as head of their Government department) and also in the Ron Paul 2008 Presidential campaign – so he knows what he’s talking about.

The framework for the argument is laid out by first establishing key definitions:

An evangelical bases his thinking on scripture first (not tradition, not a pope, not natural law). It is, at minimum, an adherence to innerrancy in scripture, the sinfulness of man, the deity of Christ, the virgin birth, the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ, the resurrection.

But Clauson goes further to note that several non-theological concepts have been added and adopted almost universally among evangelicals:

A vaguely defined adherence to “political conservatism”
Social issues (immorality of abortion, gay marriage, etc..)
Certain immoral behaviours should be regulated by government (alcohol, drugs, pornography…)
A support for a “free market” (but a lack of knowledge as to exactly what that is, and a lack of concern about monetary policy)
Reverence for the Constitution (again, though a fairly abysmal knowledge of what the Constitution actually says)
A “Strong defence” (which can mean a global military presence, especially in the Middle East)
The US is morally obligated to support Israel

Clauson then makes the statement that builds the crux of his argument: that evangelicals, based on their own theological criteria, should actually find some common ground with Austrianism. If Evangelicals would start from their main, and primary frame of reference: that scripture should be of first importance, then they would actually be more sympathetic. Clauson argues that Evangelicals need to examine their bibles closer.

However, the main reasons why evangelicals have problems with Austrianism (and many libertarian views by extension):

Many Evangelicals confuse “sins” and “crimes” in scripture. A simplistic reading of scripture has lead to many evangelicals applying broad, sweeping conclusions about sins as crimes. The bible calls many things sins, but it does not necessarily call all sins crimes (of course areas such as murder, theft, etc… are clearly defined in scripture as crimes). There is no biblical justification for making those sins which the bible does not also call crime, into state-enforced laws against sin. Again, this is derived solely from scripture and fits within the fundamentals of the evangelical worldview. Clauson:

Substantial freedom may not always be “pretty” (on the societal level—churches and religious organizations would certainly be free to deal with such behaviors, and others, within their own private domains), but it is not necessarily unbiblical, according to the Bible itself, the authoritative guide for Evangelicalism.

Continue reading ‘How Many Evangelical Christians Have Been Neo-Conned’

Yet Another “Shocking” Reason Why Freedom Is the Exception, Not The Rule In Human Society

Written by Colin. Published on March 18, 2010 ago in Current Events, Philosophy and Politics. 1 Comment

A French documentary has re-created the Milgram Experiment.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9AkZWp3mDc[/youtube]

It shows what is going on when military or police are given orders to abuse/torture/kill people. If you think that reasoning with them is going to work when they have guns pointed at you – you are wrong.

The documentary reminds us that many people are authoritarians at heart. They want rigid authority to follow and to boss them around and they fantasise and indulge in power and control over others when given the opportunity.

We should thank God every day if we live in a society of relative freedom. Based on human nature, it is obviously a gracious gift from God.

The Reluctant Anarchist and Me

Written by Colin. Published on January 20, 2010 ago in Essays, Philosophy and Politics. 5 Comments

This gem of an article definitely sounded familiar to me. The author goes through how the concept of anarchism seemed utterly foreign, radical even “evil.” But as he gradually wrestled with the ideals and principles, he came to some realisations that radically changed his worldview:

As a child I acquired a deep respect for authority and a horror of chaos. In my case the two things were blended by the uncertainty of my existence after my parents divorced and I bounced from one home to another for several years, often living with strangers. A stable authority was something I yearned for. Meanwhile, my public-school education imbued me with the sort of patriotism encouraged in all children in those days. I grew up feeling that if there was one thing I could trust and rely on, it was my government… You love your country as you love your mother – simply because it is yours, not because of its superiority to others, particularly superiority of power.

Growing up, I was also that kid. I was the one who supported authority and order. I remember being in an eighth-grade “graduation” ceremony, and someone blew up a condom and the kids began to bat it around the gymnasium while the principle was talking about us. I was so upset by the disorder of it all, that when it came near me, I grabbed it and gave it to one fo the adults who was desperately trying to get it from the kids. I didn’t do it for their approval or to kiss-up – but it bothered me, deep in my soul, that people weren’t respecting authority and being unified around this ceremony.

I became a philosophical conservative, with a strong libertarian streak. I believed in government, but it had to be “limited” government – confined to a few legitimate purposes, such as defense abroad and policing at home.

Again, I also grabbed Rand and other conservative authors and began to connect the philosophical dots. But even whilst being a “libertarian” – I supported the police, the military, cultural unity and a religious state and a strong “daddy state” which could preserve and protect those values.

Somewhere, at the rainbow’s end, America would return to her founding principles. The Federal Government would be shrunk, laws would be few, taxes minimal. That was what I thought. Hoped, anyway… In a way I had transferred my patriotism from America as it then was to America as it had been when it still honored the Constitution. And when had it crossed the line? At first I thought the great corruption had occurred when Franklin Roosevelt subverted the Federal judiciary; later I came to see that the decisive event had been the Civil War, which had effectively destroyed the right of the states to secede from the Union.

Yes, even while beginning to deplore state abuses of power, I refused to question the structure of power. The ideology of America had become perverted but there was some nugget of truth, of goodness. Like the author, my search for this “goodness” kept going back. First to World War II and the greatest generation, then to the Industrial Revolution, then the Civil War. But each time, it became clear that the accounts I had been told of these events were heavily saturated with he morality of authority and power – and even here, were great abuses of hard ethical and moral principles.

But again, the constitution, that “greatest of documents” surely was the pure point where values, government and order could congeal to form that ideal “limited government” of ideological conservatism and minarchism?

Hans [Hoppe] argued that no constitution could restrain the state. Once its monopoly of force was granted legitimacy, constitutional limits became mere fictions it could disregard; nobody could have the legal standing to enforce those limits. The state itself would decide, by force, what the constitution “meant,” steadily ruling in its own favor and increasing its own power. This was true a priori, and American history bore it out.

Again, like the author, it was Hans Hoppe who finally convinced me that even a government severely limited by a constitution or a contract was still prone to abuses and a gradual erosion of those limits. And this wasn’t just because of the people in charge, but the system itself was flawed. After all, an entity which claims to protect private property by violating property rights (through force) is a contradiction.

But even still – how can anarchism be consistent with Christianity? I had never heard of Christian Anarchists – except ultra-left wing “social justice” types who held a theological view of God and his kingdom which I see as too secular. The author dealt with this as well:

My fellow Christians have argued that the state’s authority is divinely given. They cite Christ’s injunction “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” and St. Paul’s words “The powers that be are ordained of God.” But Christ didn’t say which things – if any – belong to Caesar; his ambiguous words are far from a command to give Caesar whatever he claims. And it’s notable that Christ never told his disciples either to establish a state or to engage in politics. They were to preach the Gospel and, if rejected, to move on. He seems never to have imagined the state as something they could or should enlist on their side.

At first sight, St. Paul seems to be more positive in affirming the authority of the state. But he himself, like the other martyrs, died for defying the state, and we honor him for it; to which we may add that he was on one occasion a jailbreaker as well. Evidently the passage in Romans has been misread. It was probably written during the reign of Nero, not the most edifying of rulers; but then Paul also counseled slaves to obey their masters, and nobody construes this as an endorsement of slavery. He may have meant that the state and slavery were here for the foreseeable future, and that Christians must abide them for the sake of peace. Never does he say that either is here forever.

The state is something that exists, and we suffer under it. As Christians, it is not our job to be revolutionary anarchists. But as long as the state exists, then we are to endure it unless God, in his grace, removes it from us.

How Do We Determine If Soldiers Are Worthy Of Honor?

Written by Atanamis. Published on November 16, 2009 ago in Philosophy and Politics. 17 Comments

When considering how to view soldiers, it is important to look at both why they join, what they do, and what their nation asks of them. A soldier who joins in expectation that he is putting his life on the line for protection of others should be given credit for that willingness to sacrifice, even if the nation for which he serves uses him for unsavory purposes. A soldier who knowingly commits acts of atrocity should be scorned even if he did so for supposedly noble purposes or at the orders of a superior. In no case should a soldier be “worshiped” or considered to be above reproach, but neither should they be condemned purely because you disagree with policy decisions by their nation.

It is often hard to determine why someone joins the military. Someone who is forced to join to escape prison though clearly isn’t doing so out of an interest in serving others by putting their life on the line. Many people who join militaries do so though in the belief that doing so will protect the safety or liberty of their family, friends, or neighbors. Even if one believes this motivation is naive, the sacrifice it implies is significant. The Bible indicates that there is no greater love than to lay one’s life down for another. Someone who joins purely out of a desire to inflict harm on others though is not worthy of respect for their joining a military. Most who would call for soldiers to be honored likely would NOT call for them to be honored if it was known that they had done so purely out of a blood lust.

A soldier potentially takes that risk in joining a military. Of course, the above quality could potentially also apply to people we might consider terrorists, to those who commit war crimes, or to those who otherwise engage in acts that are unsupportable. No soldier who engages in improper conduct should be honored. The question of what consitutes “improper” is probably the biggest concern for those who oppose honoring troops. Is engaging in an unjust war improper? What about torturing an enemy who has critical information? Some might argue that there are no rules in love or war, and that any action that helps one achieve their goals is acceptable. This is generally the idea behind the view that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. In fact though, each man is responsible for his own actions and cannot beg off on having been given orders to engage in wrongful behavior.

The specifics of what is considered wrongful behavior are likely to be an area of contention, but I would not hold a soldier responsible for actions outside their direct control. This would include decisions like where their military is fighting and with what operational goals. An individual soldier cannot necessarily be expected to be familiar with the larger details of a conflict they are engaged in, or to refuse to be deployed to a given conflict. (That said, a military ought to strive to keep soldiers informed and to allow them to opt out of conflict if they feel strongly that it is unjust.) They do have control over their direct actions, and should not deliberately target civilians or engage in deliberate torture of enemies (regardless of legal combatant status). Targetting soldiers (who have not surrendered) in the case of a war for legitimate reasons is acceptable, since those soldiers have specifically identified themselves as targets.

The final condition to be considered is the cause of the nation for which a soldier fights. It is illegitimate for a soldier to intentionally join a military which they know exists for immoral purposes. If I know my nation is engaging in a genocide, I should not join its military. This raises the question of what constitutes “legitimate” use of a military. The only legitimate use of a military is to remove physical threats to oneself or others. It is always morally legitimate to respond with lethal force if someone is threatening your life or that of a non-aggressor party, regardless of whether one is in a police or military force. If someone points a gun at my wife, I’ll kill them. I can also do this if someone is threatening my neighbor with lethal force. Nations (as gatherings of people) have the right to do the same thing.

Christians And Employers

Written by Colin. Published on November 10, 2009 ago in Philosophy, Politics, Religion and Theology. 3 Comments

This entry is part 3 of 6 in the series Christianity and Covenants

Christians And Employers

I want to preface by saying that some may find this article offensive. However, my goal here is not to judge the decisions that others have made or to condemn them, but to try and look at some biblical passages and consider what they mean with regard to the topic of employment. Let me also state that I am not coming at this from a position of compliance or adherence, my own employment history is full of disregard for biblical principles, and the course to right it is ongoing and has required many sacrifices. So please consider this as a word from one sinner saved by grace to another.

The most fundamental question to ask in working out the mess or the relationship between Christians and their employers is this: what kind of contract do Christians have with their employers?

The Greco-Roman cultural context of the new testament had several classes of labour relationships: slaves/masters, employees/employers, patrons/clients, heads of house/family and others. So when Peter writes “Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear…”(1 Peter 2:18-20) or Paul writes “Bondservants, be obedient to those who are your masters…” (Ephesians 6:5), we have to keep it in it’s proper historical and cultural context.

Modern employees most certainly are not in the same category as ancient slaves. This is because employees are freely contracted – and they have been able to do this because our culture views a contract as an agreement between two or more parties or equal status. In the ancient world, slaves (and to a lesser extent: debtors and clients) had an inferior status to their masters – and this includes bond-slaves. It’s a concept entirely radical in a modern society which holds equality as a fundamental part of humanity.

Slavery is a relationship also defined by force – that is the threatening or delivering of aggressive violence. People who are being forced to work against their will, without an explicit contract, are slaves. In this sense, the relation of most people to their governments then, is a slave/master relationship – but this will have to be dealt with elsewhere, as we are focussing on employment. However, employment is a voluntary contract – not a coercive or forced one. We choose to work for an employer.

But the point is this: that the biblical language about slaves/servants and masters in not applicable to most employment. You boss is not your master and your co-workers aren’t slaves. However, this doesn’t mean that the bible has nothing to say about employees.

Making Employment Contracts
Because contracts with employers are voluntary, that is, we make them by our own free choice and as people of equal status with our employers, then we are responsible for our decisions. These relationships fall under the same kind of categories as “vows” in the bible – verbal (or written) agreements, often involving mutual obligation. And the bible has plenty to say about these relationships. A few examples:

Proverbs 20:25 – It is a snare for a man to devote rashly something as holy, And afterward to reconsider his vows.

Ecclesiastes 5:4-5 – Pay what you have vowed— Better not to vow than to vow and not pay.

Luke 16:9-13 – And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home. He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much. Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in what is another man’s, who will give you what is your own? No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

If we agree to do something for our employer, then we should do it, and we should do it with quality and diligence. We need to leave no question that we have fulfilled our vows.

But implied here is a bigger principle – the place where the most care is needed is before we even make an employment contract. We should make vows that can exist in harmony with our Christian lifestyle and worship of God. Before even entering into an employment contract, we need to be asking basic questions:

Could this job interfere with my Christian obligations? As Christians, we are to be part of a local church, sharing the gospel and ministering to the body. It would not be wise to get a job which interferes with these things. Would my workplace be a gospel-free zone? Would my work schedule cause dramatic conflicts with fellowship and ministry in my local church? Does my job place undue burdens on my family, and my ability to lead/serve them? Are my children or spouse lacking in the reception of my biblical role/responsibilities because of this job?

Could this job require me to engage in immoral/unbiblical activities? We might be surprised, if we thought about it, that there are a large number of culturally acceptable jobs which might go against biblical principles. I wonder how many soldiers ask themselves if what they are doing is defending against aggression or if they are actually engaging in a hostile initiation of violence against others. Could my my job be exploiting others? Might it promote, fund or contribute towards advocacy or endorsement of sinful or immoral lifestyle?

Could this job stifle my worship? We need to beware of taking on so much responsibility to our employer that it affects our mental and emotional capacity to engage meaningfully with God. Again the best solution is pro-active: could this job/promotion lead to me not having enough time to pray, to read my bible or consider who God is and what he has done for me?

It’s Never Too Late
We often don’t realise we’ve bit off more than we can chew with our employers until we’ve already made the contract. The bible takes this into account in other places – such as with divorces or marrying an unbeliever. We’re commanded not to do these things, but God has foreseen our inability – and yet he still sent his son to die on the cross for us. He knows that we are but dust. Just because we can’t share the gospel at work, have neglected the raising of our children or find ourselves “too busy” to commune with God does not mean we are hopeless or “outside” of God’s capacity to work with us. My family needs this word just as much as anyone – as we have both taken on plenty of contracts which have interfered with our Christian faith.

Many jobs and responsibilities can be drawn down, altered and amended to provide more time for more important things. However, this could mean that our material lifestyles must also be drawn down. My wife and I will likely never own a house or have a new car – but that is a small sacrifice. And Christians are not entitled to a middle or even lower-middle class lifestyle.

Ideally, a person who is working in an unethical profession would quit as soon as contractually possible. With some military jobs – this may not be possible, but even the military often allows for transfers/demotions to positions which are not directly contributing to the killing or harming of others.

Its easy for a person with a blog to say what should and shouldn’t be, and then throw out life-altering solutions. Trust me, it’s impacting me as well (just wait until I talk about debt!). But the point is that biblical principles aren’t measured relative to the contracts and vows we’ve made – rather, our life needs to conform to these principles.

Science and The Bible: The Philosophy of Interpretation

Written by Colin. Published on September 15, 2009 ago in Philosophy, Religion and Theology. 27 Comments

I hear a lot of different ways in which bible-believing Christians (which I will define as Christians who at least believe the bible is divinely inspired) chose to reconcile both scientific methodology and propositions with the bible.

Some flat out don’t care about science or want to deal with anything that may challenge (or support) their faith.
Some acknowledge the usefulness and general truth of science but maintain it is in a separate domain as faith. Christianity and science are viewed as generally incompatible, but possibly true simultaneously.
Some Christians claim that they are indeed “scientific” about their Christianity – they cite archaeological data and Creation-science. They claim that “the facts” demonstrate that the bible is true – as if the bible is making scientific hypotheses in it’s claims which are verified or falsified by the empirical record.

It is with this final view that I find some problems, although these are not with results or the motives, but with the implicit legitimacy that it provides to the scientific method, which I believe is not generally applicable to the bible.

Just The Facts Ma’am
My first problem is with this idea that “the facts” of the bible can “prove” the claims of the bible without any kind of deductive logic about God or his nature. This is absurd. In any situation, there is no such thing as “the facts interpreting themselves.” Without some kind of deductive reasoning, external logic or theoretical framework, the facts are merely random, unrelated and independent events in history which say nothing about anything other than their most immediate causes and effects.

The natural sciences use empirical methodology to make propositions. A hypothesis is proposed and then summarily proven or falsified by some kind of testing or experimentation. This is perfectly legitimate in many instances – but in some places it is meaningless. The facts, for example, cannot tell us anything apodictically true about God. They cannot tell us conclusively, in an absolute sense, whether, for example, he loves us.

This is an inherent problem in empirical methodology – at best, we can have something which is hypothetically true. The love of God might be clear in one situation, but a never-ending supply of variables exist which requires further testing and preserves the agnosticism and “unknowableness”about the nature of God.

The cross, for example, tells us that at least as far as the facts of the cross are concerned, that God loves us. But then how can we quantify love again, when God orders mass executions or issues punishment? The “hypothesis” on God’s love derived from the cross does not translate in the same way to God’s actions in these situations. This leads to a lot of frustrated Christians and non-Christians, at a complete loss to explain and reconcile the seemingly inconsistent actions of God.

The Law of Logic
The solution to this is simple, but is completely a-scientific – that is, insofar as the natural sciences are concerned. It requires deductive, logical propositions to first be made about God, and then assembling the facts into this framework.

A lot of uneducated, simplistic and (dare I say) ignorant statements about this have been made (including by myself in the past) that, for example, a theory should be derived from the facts, not the other way around. This kind of thinking ignores literally millennia of philosophy, theology and applied logic in preference of a statement which is logically contradictory – after all, is that statement derived from the facts, or is it, itself, a claim on how to assemble facts into the way a pre-existing proposition declares?

Even the verse that “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork” (Psalm 19:1) is only understood in light of a deductive theory on God. The heaven’s don’t show the cross. The heavens don’t show the virgin birth – despite what a lot of junk-quasi-Christian-feel-good-science would claim. But, if we assemble a logic-based doctrine of the cross, then a the events of history do fit into place and can illustrate or “declare the glory of God.”But without understanding “the glory of God” we have no way of measuring what, if anything, the heavens declare.

The Nature of Faith
This is why faith is a fundamental aspect of Christianity. “Faith” is not the willingness to ignorantly believe in faulty hypotheses. “Faith” is also not attempting to “prove” the bible by means which are not relevant to biblical propositions. Faith is trusting, holding and hoping in the deductive truths about God and his gospel – it is adopting a deductively “Christian” frame of reference and worldview. It is deliberately biasing, prejudicing and otherwise colouring one’s view in brazen defiance of many “scientific” hypotheses – in favour of the gospel.

Faith is deductive in nature. Biblical truth is also deductive in nature. Assuming that the bible is going to tell us more than random stories, facts and genealogies without bringing something to it is going to result in failure. This is not to say that there isn’t a role for hypothesising and empiricism in Christianity, but simply that such methodology cannot by definition teach us anything about the fundamental truths of our faith.

Christian Morality and Universal Heathcare

Written by Colin. Published on August 25, 2009 ago in Philosophy, Politics and Theology. Closed

Like posts that assert a “Christian” position in favour the legalisation of drugs or are against war, I am going to have to qualify this one with a disclaimer or two.

I don’t propose to have an authoritative (as in God-inspired) word from on high about this or any political issue. However, I do think there are some biblical and theological principles that can be remembered and considered in the discussion about how to provide healthcare for people.

Just as with the question of drug or prostitution legalisation – there is a very clear line between endorsing something and believing that something should be forced on everyone by law. Healthcare for all is something that every Christian should be advocating and supporting. Part of our calling as Christians is to (at the very least) pray for the welfare of our fellow man, including strangers and enemies. But what it really should look like is material support in the form of giving, labouring and strategic action in the form of practical service to our community.

However, I believe that Christian support for government-run (or controlled) healthcare is a well-motivated, but mistaken way to apply these principles.

The chief problem with some form of government-mandated care (no matter who ultimately provides it – the government or private companies) is that in order to “give” healthcare to some, it must be taken from others. Christians can and should support giving – but it is incompatible with Christian principles, no matter how noble the goals – to support taking.

Healthcare is a scarce good. It has to be produced by someone – doctors, nurses, technicians, R&D people, chemists and other scientists. In order for us to give healthcare to people who cannot afford it, we must make those people work against their will. They have to go into involuntary servitude for our morals.

Consider the incompatibility of that idea – what kind of “morals” would condone involuntary servitude? How can Christians claim that we are acting on godly motives, if we support and even participate in the enslavement of our fellow man?

If we want to see a healthier world, we should achieve it by biblical means – educate people about healthy choices, give money freely and encourage others to do the same, volunteer or provide health services as part of one’s job. But we cannot claim to be doing God’s work when we make people support our morals (that is by threatening them with fines, jail or worse). The power of the state is not a means that Christians should be using to “help” God in his plans.

But we can still do something.

The less scarce that healthcare becomes, the cheaper and more accessible it will be. Socialistic healthcare is one way to distribute care, but it is a horrible way to produce it. The profit motive of capitalism drives men and women, even while serving their own interests, to ultimately provide goods to the public. Capitalism is the greatest productive force that man has ever devised. And while not perfect, capitalism could easily make healthcare as abundant as any other good and service we currently take for granted.

Christians are to be good Samaritans – if we see someone in desperate need of care, we should be the one stopping. But it would not be Christ-like to see someone in need, and rather than doing something ourselves, pull out a weapon and force someone else to help them. This is essentially what government control or provision of healthcare means in today’s world of scarcity.

Christians must set a good example by doing, and then, based on that record of self-sacrifice, encourage and educate others about their need to help as well. I suspect that the problem of healthcare access in America could at least be temporarily eliminated if every Christian gave or worked the equivalent of a few hours of labour. However, because this is not happening, does not give the rest of us the right to make others do our work for us.

Like any political issue – Christians need to pursue activism and effort in biblically compatible ways. With drugs and prostitution, it means condeming the behaviour as sinful, whilst refusing to compell people to follow Christian morals. With healthcare, it means seeking universal and equal access without violating the fundamental rights of the honest people who have worked hard, invested or otherwise produced goods and services.

How to Talk Libertarianism with the (European) Left

Written by Colin. Published on August 12, 2009 ago in Essays, Philosophy and Politics. 8 Comments

I have been in Europe a year now and one of the greatest benefits of being out of the US is that I tend to have complete control over how much American politics comes into my life. I feel like I can breathe. Americans (and I am one) are opinionated – and they tend to get riled up over some of the silliest political points. The media in the US is in your face – cable news will beat a story to death, every hour of every day. American journalists continue, year after year after year to say dumb things like this – calling lower state budget increases: “budget cuts.”

Anyway, having a year out of this has been great. Really great. But I have been in political conversations over in England. And they are generally rather relaxing – people listen to each other. They aren’t trying to figure out whether you are a conservative or a liberal – and this determines whether they will ignore you or agree with you (in both instance, without listening to you, of course).

In talking with Europeans, I have found that I am able to communicate my points by listening to what they are concerned about first, and then offering a solution that actually takes into account their view of the problem. If we agree about the problem, then were working together, rather than talking past each other.

Capitalists need acknowledge that this mess isn’t our fault. In fact, we should be more upset than the left right now because not only is this a statist problem, but we’re getting the blame for it! Let people on the left know that you are not happy with greed, corruption and the secret deals going on in the present system.

I have gotten favourable responses from people when I have then added that these problems are not going to go away by giving more power to the state. After all – it has been with the help of the state (and the power and authority the state represents) that these measures have been taken. By increasing regulation (and hence, creating more power to abuse) we are merely setting ourselves up for future exploitation.

The European left gets this. They see the corruption of power a lot more easily than Americans do (many Americans live in a bubble, where the costs of their government’s policies are externalised onto the rest of the world in foreign wars, debt and other interventions).

What the European left lacks is the libertarian and capitalist framework to explain it. For the past century, they have primarily had Marxist framework to express their dissatisfaction with the state. But if this is worked through, then it is clear that many of the objections of the European left are actually libertarian in origin. There is strong support for civil liberties here, principles of innocence before guilt and even private property. But these concepts have to be discussed in “European language” and often with leftist framework.

Rather than saying that I am for “free-trade,” I left people know that I support the free movement of people and goods and cultural exchange. These are goals that the EU is supposed to support, and people have generally seen the benefits of an economically integrated Europe. I talk about the correlation between trade and peace, and how trade can cause people who otherwise hate each other to act cooperatively.

Rather than saying I am for “deregulation” or “privatisation” (words which have come to mean cronyism and exploitation) I explain that I am for regulation – but not regulation that creates increased power in the hands of government (and the corporations that are closely allied with it). The kind of regulation I support is from consumers, customers and local communities – even the voluntary actions of unions and other groups using legitimate means to accomplish change. These are decentralised ways to check the greed and avarice in human nature without creating bigger problems of government largesse.

I have also has a lot of success talking about our equality as individuals. That as people, we should acknowledge the same rights in others that we see in ourselves. Europeans like equality as a concept, but often they haven’t thought about the inequality of attempting to legislate equality. It is far more constructive to talk about the natural equality of people as an inherent value – rather than as a value we can only obtain from an external authority: e.g. the state making us equal.

Again, it comes down to listening, and learning. This is the most important thing. Preaching talking points at people belittles them and is insulting. But offering real libertarian strategies for people’s actual problems can go a long way.

Free Markets Require Unanimity

Written by Colin. Published on July 15, 2009 ago in Essays, Philosophy and Politics. 4 Comments

In part, this piece is a response to these posts written a couple of months ago, to which I never fully responded in the comments.

Describing Government in Anarcho-Capitalist Terms
Where Anarchists Respond Wrongly to Government

But it is also meant to be a stand-alone argument for why coercive force is never “free market” regardless of the purpose, intents or motivations of those advocating or initiating force.

Government Arising From Anarchy?
Before I believed that a purely voluntary society was at least possible in theory, I took the position that governments were a natural creation of “anarchy” sometime in humanity’s past, and therefore were, at least in an empirical or pragmatic sense, legitimate. I may not have liked the way in which any governments work (none of them do “work” in any imaginable sense of the word) but it seemed that a lack of government had its chance and governments are obviously as inevitable as death and taxes.

But governments are not free market or capitalistic in any way because they are not voluntary. Any “government” that is voluntary ceases to be a government – that is a coercive monopoly on force. If a “government” does not prevent other agencies from providing services, individuals to provide their own services – than it is no longer a government.

Freeriders
The first argument that then comes into play is the freerider. This person benefits from defence services either directly or indirectly without paying for them. But the freerider is not aggressing against the service provider in order to steal service, rather he his being gifted this service by the imprecision of the provider.

The solution to the freerider is not to charge everyone because it is most likely that they benefit anyway. This is the provider’s problem – not the freerider’s.

The TVLA as an Example
In England, television is a public good and is paid for by a licence fee – about $240 per year. the TVLA is a corporation that has been empowered by the state to collect licence fees and also to investigate people who are “stealing” tv. Because tv is broadcast rergardless of payment, the TVLA has had to use draconian measures of intimidation, deception and fraud in order to seek out an prosecute non-licence payers.

All people in living in England are expected to prove that they are innocent of watching tv without a licence. Until they satisfy the TVLA, they are subject to constant harassing visits, letters, threats and searches.

But the fact that the tv is broadcast so widely is the government’s fault, not people who do not break any ethics by buying a tv, a box to receive tv and subsequently watching it. These freeriders are benefiting for free -but the fact that the government is losing its services and people are “salvaging” it from the commons is perfectly defensible.

The solution to the freerider problem is not a presumption of freeriding by all people until they prove they are not. Rather it is for the provider of any good or service to make explicit contracts with individuals and enforce those contracts accordingly. If a good or service cannot be profitable because of insufficient technology or infrastructure to handle freerider problems, then the solution is not to substitute force for this lacking – it is to abandon the service.

On Contracts
Regardless of the freerider problem, the basic ethics of voluntary society do not change. Contracts cannot be “presumed” or “implied” they must be explicit. Contracts with a large amount of people or a collective group, must be unanimous – otherwise they are not valid.

Llysander Spooner, great abolitionist, labour advocate and criminal for his daring to compete with the US Post office declared:

These facts are all so vital and so self-evident, that it cannot reasonably be supposed that any one will voluntarily pay money to a “government,” for the purpose of securing its protection, unless he first make an explicit and purely voluntary contract with it for that purpose.

It is perfectly evident, therefore, that neither such voting, nor such payment of taxes, as actually takes place, proves anybody’s consent, or obligation, to support the Constitution. Consequently we have no evidence at all that the Constitution is binding upon anybody, or that anybody is under any contract or obligation whatever to support it. And nobody is under any obligation to support it.

For a contract to be valid – regardless of whether it is verbal, written or even implied – there must be consent from all parties of the contract. For example, four of my neighbours could not all sign a binding contract giving them shares in my property if I do not sign it. If they brought such a contract and attempted to enforce it – I would be legitimate in protecting myself despite their “contract” or the democratic principles behind their action (four”votes” out of five).

However there are examples of purely voluntary contracts for millions of goods and services all over the world. Wal-Mart doesn’t bring me baskets of products without my asking – rather, they advertise their contracts and I only become responsible for the goods when I consent to purchase them. Just as Wal-Mart can’t force me to buy their groceries, I cannot stand guard outside of Wal-Mart all night, even defending it from thieves and vandals, and then expect that they must pay me the next morning.A government, of course, could make a contract with every single one of its citizens – but it has to be consented to unanimously for it to be valid. Every new immigrant or birth in the country would also require a new contract.

To my knowledge, there is no government on earth which has done this, and there never will be. This is because government, by definition, uses aggressive force. Its very existence breaks the non-aggression axiom (regardless how small or limited it is). Government is hardly “free market.”