Monthly Archives: May 2009

Individualism v. Freedom from Overreaching State?

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Notice I’m trying to avoid questions about how much is overreaching, whether one is in favor of minarchism or not, etc.

What I am noticing is a tendency of people opposed to some level of state intrusiveness (some level of action that they count as intrusive) and present the antidote with the claim that individual human beings are not obligated to one another beyond the obligation to not attack or steal or defraud.

So, in a libertarian society, if Jeff sees Tom mugged by Bill, is he not obligated to help?  What if he knows in advance that his friend Bill plans to mug Tom, is he free from any legal responsibility for the assault and theft?

My hunch is that, in actual history, this sort of ethic has very little in common with societies that have been able to keep the government restrained from intrusion.  And I have very little confidence that this sort of widespread ethic would be conducive to anything like a free, peaceful, and prosperous society.

It seems much more likely that only a society which widely understands that people are responsible for one another would be able to minimize or eliminate the state and be free, peaceful, and prosperous.

A policeman friend of mine told me that most of his time is spent intervening between neighbors who call the police rather than deal with one another.  I’m not sure if there is a faster way to grow a police state.

Having it both ways in PaleoLiberteria

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I overall enjoy lewrockwell.com, but I’ve noticed something interesting. When discussing war, participants tend to be interested in talking about how the NT has primacy over the OT. But when the topic is resisting government through disobedience or rebellion, the NT isn’t appealed to all that much.

When were we not a corporate fascist state?

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By some weird coincidence of impulse and information, I ended up getting from the library The President Makers: The Culture of Politics and Leadership in An Age of Enlightenment 1896-1919 by Matthew Josephson.  I just read the first few pages of “The Golden Years of McKinley and Hanna” and feel like I have just taken the Red Pill.

Is trying to decipher the problems in American history always like pulling up a weed and finding the root is so long that it never pulls free?

Secular freedom personified (instead of a book review)

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I finished this book, finally, and am not sure I can do it justice.  As you may have noticed when I mentioned it before, it is the kind of book that has a lot of personal connection to me that might not apply to anyone else.  Still, here is my attempt.

An Enemy of the State was written by one of my favorite political columnists, and it is the most fun I have had in awhile.

Not a teen anarchist who never grew up.

One of the big surprises to me was how long it took for Rothbard to embrace anarchism.  I had assumed that he had reacted to the marxism of his family and become an anarcho-capitalist as a teenager.

But, for one thing, I was wrong about one aspect of Rothbard’s upbringing: his father was very much a pro-American supporter of the free market.  They remained close while his father was alive.  And Murray himself was an active participant in the “old right” movement to promote free markets and to oppose foreign interventionism.  Even in grad school he had not yet become the radical libertarian he is now known as (for better or worse).

It used to be worse.

With the Democrat hegemony currently in place, many who grew up during the Reagan victories are tempted to think things are as bad as they could be.  This was a good time, therefore, to read Rothbard’s biography.  He had a much more hostile environment to deal with from the New Deal to World War II to the Cold War and the Great Society, the pro-peace, pro-freedom principles of the Old Right was increasingly isolated, ignored, and mocked by virtually everyone.

It was especially hard for Rothbard to see old allies who had opposed American involvement in WWII suddenly get on board the National Review band wagon in favor of nuclear war with Russia.  He saw virtually all the remnants of the anti-war conservatives completely subverted to support the rising welfare-warfare state.

The fact that Rothbard continued to be optimistic and keep looking for strategic avenues to communicate his vision is nothing less than inspiring.

Reaching out to the New Left not a Productive Strategy

I first heard of Rothbard because I was part of a group that received “The Rothbard-Rockwell Report.”  It was the result of severing ties with the group who had formed the Libertarian Party and represented an alliance with paleo-conservatives, who after the end of the Cold War were interested in reverting to a pro-peace and pro-freedom foreign policy.

Before this time, from the late sixties through the seventies, Rothbard had tried to reach out to the New Left and to college students.  The results were not productive.  College radicals could spout off libertarian slogans, but they couldn’t become a mass movement.  Rather than trying to reach Middle America, Libertarians wanted to define themselves as “low-tax liberals.”  Furthermore, with the anti-state attitude came many more anti-establishment attitudes that no healthy society (stateless or not) could ever sustain.

To some extent, Rothbard brought this on himself.  He had an ideological streak that, while not as unhealthy as the Rand Cult, got him involved in some messes.  The whole account of Karl Hess “converting” to anarchism in Rothbard’s living room set my teeth on edge.

The History of Economic Thought

This climactic chapter alone deserves a series of posts.  I expected it to be boring but by the end it was my favorite part of the book.  Rothbard had wanted to write a history of economic thought for years, and finally got two volumes of it done before he died.  He shows that Adam Smith was by no means a pioneer, let alone the founder, of the discipline of free market economics.  In fact, he was a step back.  He also showed there has been a long-standing struggle between those who thought that they could control the world through values-free mathematics and those who wanted freedom.  Especially eye-opening to me was Rothbard’s discussion of how Jonathan Swift was opposing such people in his own day.  I have read all of Gulliver’s Travels and caught some obvious barbs toward some relying on mathematical ingenuity, but had no idea who he was responding to.

Here is an entertaining audio from his wife Joey.

audio

This book is worth reading on several levels.  Since I am a Christian, and not a secularist, I can’t follow Rothbard in all his thought.  But he is still quite helpful, and just as important, quite fun to read and read about.

N. T Wright and “Federal Vision” FAQ 2 (N. T. Wright continued, exile and politics)

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(Continued from Part One)

Can we talk about Wright’s idea of Israel still being in exile now?

OK, we should probably get back to that.  Part of Wright’s offense, as it were, is that he does real covenant theology; which means, he understands that the God revealed in the Bible is a God who is bound to an identifiable and visibly-marked out people or society.  As you might have noticed, both those two parables I mentioned to you involve a more “corporate” emphasis than is often realized.

This corporate  emphasis has commonly been linked–in Wright’s writings and in the minds of his critics–with the claim that Israel had never really returned from exile and that Jesus was finally announcing the real return from exile for the nation.  Basically, in Wright’s understanding, the prophecy of Moses in Deuteronomy 30, and re-asserted by Jeremiah and Ezekiel had not yet been fulfilled, even though Israel had been brought back from exile and given the land.

Is this related to that weird interpretation of the Prodigal Son in his Jesus & the Victory of God?

Oh, puh-leeeze!  That insight that the Prodigal Son story would remind listeners of the return from exile is extremely helpful and convincing.  Ever since childhood I have wondered about the weird metaphor that simply appears without warning, “he was dead, and is alive.”  Wright showed me where the concept came from, the return from exile as prophesied in Ezekiel and Isaiah.  The description of the prodigal going to and returning from “a far country” is important.

Well now it sound like you agree that Israel was in exile.

No, Israel was in deep trouble like they had never been before.  They were in Egypt and Babylon, only worse, even though they were geographically in the land.  But just like there is no reason to claim that Israel had never really left Egypt, so there was no reason to believe that Israel never left Babylon.  They had been delivered from Egypt and then they had been delivered from the nations as Moses predicted in Deuteronomy 30, but they had fallen from that greater grace into greater sin.  You look in vain for any time before when Israel was filled with demoniacs the way it was when Jesus came.  Precedents like the spirit tormenting Saul only emphasize how much worse off Israel now was when Jesus appeared on the scene.

Any evidence you want to share with us against Wright’s interpretation?

I have already mentioned Wright’s excellent insight into Matthew 12.43-45, which says that Israel had been cleansed of a demon in the past and was now worse off than before.  Maccabees simply does not cut it as a possible explanation.  The demon was sent away when Israel was again in the land.  But I think Mark 11.17 is also inexplicable unelss the promises of return have been fulfilled.  Jesus says that the Temple should be a house of prayer for all the nations.  He is quoting Isaiah 56.7 which, in context, is probably usually understood as a prophecy of the New Covenant.  But it is not.  Jesus thinks it is already in effect and that the Temple rulers have fallen away from it.

So there was a return from Exile but there was, in a sense, another fall into a different sort of exile.

Right, and this one was worse than the others.  Israel was truly free from idolatry in one sense.  Unlike the Prophets, Jesus never has to denounce the Israelites for their shrines to Baal or unauthorized image-shrines to YHWH.  But something worse has happened.  Critics are right to disagree with Wright, but they are wrong if they think this undermines his point obout Jesus socio-political message?

Socio-political?

This is another point where Wright’s insights are blindingly obvious and yet I’d been entirely blind to them.  The temple was going to be destroyed as a national judgment–but judgment for what?  The Gospels are stuffed with information about that issue, but it all gets lost in a preacher’s felt need to present a view where people don’t think they need propitiation and Jesus is telling them that they do.

Does N. T. Wright believe in the need for propitiation.

Yes, he clearly does.  In his commentary on Romans he makes this clear.  In his lectures on Romans at Regent College in Vancouver, B. C. he ripped into the NIV for not using the term “propitiation” in their translation of Romand 3.25.

So the doctrine of propitiation is not lost on this second look at what the Gospels are saying.

No, not at all. The point is that Jesus was confronting the whole nation over unrepentant sin–sin which they had managed to convince themselves was holiness.  There are several places and ways to show this, but since you asked about propitiation, lets talk about the accusation that sent Jesus the cross.  What does Jesus say to the women weeping over him as he goes to the cross?  He tells them quite directly the he is being crucified for a charge of which he is innocent, but that in a generation, Jerusalem’s children will be so obviously guilty of that accusation that they will be crucified and more.

And this is backed up by the whole choice between Jesus and another “son of the father” Barabbas.  Barabbas is a “robber”–the same word used to describe the two people Jesus is crucified between and also used by Jesus when he claims the Temple has been made into a “robber’s den.  A robber, however, is not someone who steals, but an outlaw rebel.  Barabbas, we are told in the Gospels is an insurrectionist and a murderer.

This is going to show how Jesus’ challenge was socio-political?

Yes.  Jesus came preaching the Kingdom, which everyone already wanted and expected.  But Jesus told them they were preparing for this Kingdom in a way that was only making God angrier with them.  Israel loved outlaw killers and thought they looked more like the hope of Israel than Jesus did.  As we have already discussed, Jesus told his generation that, unless they repented, they too would be killed by Roman soldiers and many more Jerusalemites would be destroyed by tumbling buildings.

Israel had adopted as a national way of life a stance toward the world and toward how to live in it that was not Her true calling.  As a nation formed by God for a mission, this covenant calling was, by definition, socio-political.  Jesus was coming and proclaiming a new way of life that was appropriate to God’s calling on Israel.  Jesus was calling for a re-defined “Politics of Holiness.”

To be continued

This needs to happen about a billion more times.

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I walked into Gamestop to trade in the two used DS games, and the clerk asked me if I wanted cash or a store credit. When I replied “cash” the clerk asked for my driver’s license. When I asked why, he told me that they are technically a pawn shop, and when giving cash for a trade-in they must report the recipient’s driver’s license number to the Department of Homeland Security and the Internal Revenue Service.

So, I changed my selection to “store credit,” whereupon the clerk promptly asked me for my name and telephone number. When I asked why . . . you guessed it . . . he replied that, as a pawn shop, he had to report that information to the Department of Homeland Security and the Internal Revenue Service. He said that they needed to track these things.

Outraged, I replied that they do NOT need to track these things and that they already track way too many things. I told him that it was nobody’s business but his and mine that I was selling used video games.

I reminded him that I cannot even buy cold medicine at the drug store without reporting the transaction to the government.

via History News Network.

The GOP suicide pact is still in force

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Jeb Bush says the GOP must “leave Reagan behind” but can’t bring himself to recommend the same regarding Bushes 41 and 43.

Neither can the GOP, apparently. Now the party stalwartly entrenched in the meaningless minority turns to Bush trough dwellers and ignoramae (is that the Latin plural feminine accusative for ignoramus?) to lead the party message out of the darkness. Especially guaranteed to keep the GOP in deep doo-doo is Dana Perino, famous for never having heard about the Cuban Missile Crisis as she explained away Bush’s winsome wars.

Jeb says the GOP must put Reagan behind us. Perhaps the better advice is to put the GOP behind us.

via LewRockwell.com Blog: GOP Death Wish, Continued.

Am I the only one to see a parallel between the GOP’s total disconnect from reality and the disconnect demonstrated by our economic overlords?  Everyone knows that the bailouts are all driven by corruption and that trillion dollar deficits are about to cause disaster in the economy, but our leaders keep going forward (whether under Bush or Obama makes no difference).  And everyone knows the GOP needs to leave Bush behind but the party apparatus is oblivious.  Just as we give the people who caused the crisis authority to do the same to fix the crisis, so we ask people who destroyed the GOP how to fix it.

Pure madness. With Obama out-Bushing Bush, this is the perfect time for the GOP to make a comeback by throwing Bush under the bus (late, I know, but I suspect the Obama economy would shorten memories and grudges).  But it seems that McCain’s idiotic campaign was a taste of things to come (McCain would have had a serious chance if he had opposed the bailout rather than that “I’m suspending my campaign” ploy to back it).

Glenn Greenwald on G-Sax Nation

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Top Senate Democrat: bankers “own” the U.S. Congress

Sen. Dick Durbin, on a local Chicago radio station this week, blurted out an obvious truth about Congress that, despite being blindingly obvious, is rarely spoken: “And the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.” The blunt acknowledgment that the same banks that caused the financial crisis “own” the U.S. Congress — according to one of that institution’s most powerful members — demonstrates just how extreme this institutional corruption is.

The ownership of the federal government by banks and other large corporations is effectuated in literally countless ways, none more effective than the endless and increasingly sleazy overlap between government and corporate officials. Here is just one random item this week announcing a couple of standard personnel moves:

Former Barney Frank staffer now top Goldman Sachs lobbyist

Goldman Sachs’ new top lobbyist was recently the top staffer to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., on the House Financial Services Committee chaired by Frank. Michael Paese, a registered lobbyist for the Securities Industries and Financial Markets Association since he left Frank’s committee in September, will join Goldman as director of government affairs, a role held last year by former Tom Daschle intimate, Mark Patterson, now the chief of staff at the Treasury Department. This is not Paese’s first swing through the Wall Street-Congress revolving door: he previously worked at JP Morgan and Mercantile Bankshares, and in between served as senior minority counsel at the Financial Services Committee.

So: Paese went from Chairman Frank’s office to be the top lobbyist at Goldman, and shortly before that, Goldman dispatched Paese’s predecessor, close Tom Daschle associate Mark Patterson, to be Chief of Staff to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, himself a protege of former Goldman CEO Robert Rubin and a virtually wholly owned subsidiary of the banking industry. That’s all part of what Desmond Lachman — American Enterprise Institute fellow, former chief emerging market strategist at Salomon Smith Barney and top IMF official (no socialist he) — recently described as “Goldman Sachs’s seeming lock on high-level U.S. Treasury jobs.”

via Top Senate Democrat: bankers “own” the U.S. Congress – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.