Hmm .... More food for thought -- The Bible and Liberty

So I'm still in Exodus, trying to read 20 chapters a day or so, give or take, until I catch up with a Bible-in-a-year plan that I started late on.

Today was Exodus 13-32.  And at a glance, liberty is not the first thing that comes to mind.  They did, indeed, achieve liberty from Pharaoh.   However, as soon as they were free from his yolk, all kinds of rules and regulations were placed upon them.   Many, many rules and regulations.  The first 10 were the most famous, of  course.   But the they got into all these other things like how to handle if someone steals your slave or harms your livestock.  At a glance, it hardly seems like liberty.

But liberty does not mean the right to do whatever you want.  Rather, it means that you are free to live as you see fit, provided you do not harm to others.  Jesus pointed out that the Law could be summed up in two commands.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself.   To do one is to do the other.   And all of these laws in this passage deal with these two commands -- follow and trust in God's directions, and don't wrong your neighbor (or, if you do, here is the consequence). 

Also, the liberty on which our country was founded was based on the idea that every man should be free to serve his God, without government interfering and regulating it.  This is an important differentiation, which becomes more clear later under Saul.   God tried to talk the Israelites out of wanting a king.  He said that following their God is enough without having a single human leader.   They persisted, and He allowed it.  But He made it clear that His preference was for a lack of human government.

Libertarianism, or at least my particular brand of it, does not mean an anarchical free-for-all.  Rather, it means that each man is free to determine his own route, his own standards, etc., and to serve his own God.   Some may choose to serve themselves, making themselves their own gods.  They will receive appropriate consequences for their actions at the appropriate time -- it is not my place to condemn them, but only to try to teach.  Others will choose to serve false gods, and they will have the same result.

But God gave us free will.  He did not create robots to simply be yes-men.  I don't claim to know the mind of God inside out, but I can only think that He did this so we could choose to follow Him.  Our culture does not favor arranged marriages.  We believe that choosing who to love is more valid than having it chosen for you.  It seems that the same is true in an eternal and heavenly realm.

As such, each of us has the choice of whether to follow God's calling.   In a society of liberty, we should continue to have that choice.
The first command of God that Jesus stated was this.

Then there's the second -- love your neighbor as yourself.   No amount of legislation can force a person to do this.  However, I believe this is the only place that government can serve a legitimate role.   It can protect one person from wrongdoing by another, which is what these initial laws in the first part to the middle of Exodus do.

One more thing.   I haven't a lot of John Locke's writings.  I have some in my Google Books reader, but haven't gotten there yet.   But I do know that he takes great care in defining property as simply being that which a man possesses as a result of his own labor.  It can be money, land, other items.  If he did work and earned a reward, that reward is his property.  If he trades that property for something else of value to himself, then that which he traded for becomes his property in lieu of his original holdings.

Based on that definition, the stuff in Exodus is about protection of body and of property.  A very libertarian idea -- and the primary difference between the basic worldview of the pure anarcho-capitalist and the libertarian, at least according to my understanding.

How important is life?

Benjamin Franklin is credited with saying something to the effect of,  "Any man who is willing to sacrifice liberty for the sake of security deserves neither liberty nor security."

I've been thinking and reading lately about some of these laws and regulations, particularly in the food and drug areas.  They say that certain things are done to save lives, and if one life is saved, it's worth it.  I'm not so sure.  You see, no life is ever saved by government.  It may be prolonged, but it is not saved. 

If our national security is threatened -- that is, if someone is attacking us -- then the government (i.e. the military) ought to step in.  But it is not the government's job to save us from ourselves.   That cannot happen without undermining liberty.

And the Franklin quote seems to say that liberty is a higher priority than security.

I think I agree.

My body will someday rot in the ground.  So will yours.  Deal with it.  Get used to it.  If mine does because of something I ate, so be it.  If it does because of some cancer I got from too much sunlight, so be it.  If it does because of a car accident, so be it.  I hope it is quick and painless, whenever it happens, and I hope it is a long time before it does.   But that is not the government's place to say.  Only if I am directly attacked by another human should the government be involved.

I am pro-life.   No person has the right to intentionally take the life of another, especially if that person is defenseless.  But that is as far as the government should go.

I'm reading Exodus right now.   It strikes me how many Egyptians were struck dead simply so that they would acknowledge God.  It also strikes me that God did all of this in order to achieve liberty for His people.

So there are some things more important than life.   Acknowledgement of, and following, God is one of those things.   Liberty is another.

Yet another reason I'm a Libertarian, and I believe that Christianity lines up perfectly well with the ideology.

Thoughts?

I haven't forgotten about this, really.

Sorry if  you enjoyed this and wanted an update, Things got really hectic at work, and then I got sick.

I'm testing an Android  Blogger app right now, and should do a full post on the presidential race before the weekend's over.

Suffice it to say, I'm not very happy with the way things are going.

More on that soon.

Why I believe some liberals hate diversity.

Liberals love to talk about how they love diversity. They want to take credit for the civil rights movement. And skin-color diversity is great for America. But that's about the least important type of diversity. Yes, I said it. Here's why. There is no difference of intellectual capacity, emotional capability, or anything else that really matters that correlates with skin color. Skin color is just that, physical appearance. We as a society ascribe other characteristics as if they correlate, but when we do, we're wrong.

Skin color has to do with the physical body, but not the spiritual. Growing up as a minority may make a difference in a person's spirit, but skin color is not in and of itself a spiritual matter. Therefore, when we dwell on that and assume that's all there is to "diversity," we are, once again, focusing only on the physical bodies, but neglecting the spirit. (Are you sensing a pattern here?)

Character
Liberals love social programs that provide people's physical needs. But these programs have a way of equalizing outcomes, or at least moving in that direction. The U.S. is considered to be a land of opportunity, and as a result, our outcomes are a sign of our diversity of character. Character is much more closely related to spirit than is skin color. And equalizing outcomes, therefore, is an attempt to equalize character. And this runs contrary to the idea of diversity.

Ability
There are many liberals who love doing away with rewards for great abilities. In reality, most of us have areas in which we are quite capable, and other areas in which we struggle. This is what makes us unique as individuals. Awards are a way of acknowledging individuals' areas of strength and hard work. To do away with this acknowledgement is an effort to do away with motivation to excel in one's particular area. It's a way to make us more the same, but ignoring our differences. And this runs contrary to the idea of diversity.

I'm going to stop here, because I know I can get long-winded (or, since I'm typing, long-fingered?). But allow me to just mention a few other areas I could go on about. Gender (making males more feminine and females more masculine). Income (taking more from the rich, giving more to the poor -- laudable when done voluntarily, but wrong when forced). Skill level (this one is not as prominent, but I have heard situations where a particularly skilled child is encouraged to "tone down" his or her performance, be it on the stage or the field, so as not to show up his or her classmates).

All of these run contrary to the idea of diversity.

I love diversity. I love that we are all different, each of us unique. But skin color is only one of the many ways we are different. And in so many cases, liberals that I hear are striving for same-ness. That's boring. And it's wrong.

OK, that's it. Peace out.

Bauer, O'Reilly, and Reagan

So I was watching Bill O'Reilly last night, and Gary Bauer was on. He made the claim that Reagan would have been in favor of an amendment banning gay marriage. O'Reilly disagreed, saying we cannot know that, since Reagan did not speak on the subject.

Bauer supported his point by saying that Reagan wrote a whole book against abortion. And somehow, Bauer seems to have made the connection in his mind that, if a person is against abortion, they must be in favor of banning gay marriage.

These are two completely different issues, and O'Reilly said as much, although he didn't explain why. So I decided I would explain why, here on my blog. Don't worry, this shorter and simpler than my prior posts.

Many of us believe that government does too much to control people, and we want it to do less. But some only want less control financially, while others want less control socially. Many of us, however, want less control altogether.

It is all about the role. Government has one simple role: to protect us from those who would bring us physical harm. Gay marriage does not directly physically harm anyone. The fact is, in my opinion, marriage belongs to the church, anyway, not the government, and can you imagine the outrage if someone wanted an amendment banning gay baptism? It's none of the government's business who gets baptized, and it is likewise none of their business, morally, who gets married.

But I digress. Back on point, gay marriage does not bring physical harm to another, and abortion does. It's that simple. Banning abortion is within the role of government. Banning gay marriage (or really, having anything at all to say about marriage of any sort), is outside the realm of the role of government.

God gave us free will -- the ability to obery Him and the ability to disobey Him, so we could choose to do the right thing. How is it that some people don't think God did enough, and they want government to take it further?

Excuses, excuses

I am a teacher. I teach music. I have a favorite poster on my door. All the other music teachers I know have the same poster up. It resembles a road sign, but instead of Speed Limit: 55, it says Excuse Limit: 0.

If my students get nothing else from my class, I want them to learn that their choices and their responses have the power to get them to rise to greatness.

My school is classified as low-income. 90% of our students (more in my building) are minorities. Many of my students live in apartments, and move often, being in our district for only a year or two, often. There are some who are more stable, but there are many who are not. Many of them also come from single-parent homes. Some are practically raised by older siblings rather than their parents, who are working hard at two jobs just to keep food in the house. It is sad that kids need to be raised this way, but I give props to the parents who do whatever they have to to support their families.


PARENTING
That said, there is a problem that results from this. Excuses abound. I sometimes have conversations with parents regarding poor work or poor behavior from their students. The parents sometimes want to ask their children why the behavior occurred, at which point the student will give an excuse. ("He started it," "she said my momma was fat," "he was looking at me funny," etc.) This is understandable -- they are kids. The problem comes when the parent accepts the excuse and tells the child that their behavior was OK because of the other person involved. Don't get me wrong -- this only occurs in a small number of cases. But it does occur. And it breaks my heart.

These parents do not realize that they are teaching their children to be helpless. They are teaching their children that is OK to do the wrong thing as long as you put the blame elsewhere. And this is becoming an epidemic in our society.

PERSONAL SUCCESS
I used to work in sales. When my numbers were down, I'd talk to the boss and tell him why. If I gave him a good sob story, do you think he paid me more? Of course not! Either I got results or I didn't get the money. That's the beauty of commission sales -- it is a true, sincere form of pay.

The boss never said it out loud, but when I'd make an excuse, he could just look in the direction of another salesman who was going through the same thing, and yet sold more.

Eventually, it hit me -- all these excuses meant nothing. I thought back to my middle school band director, who had his own poster, which said, "results, not excuses." And I began to get more focused on making it happen, rather than allowing it not to happen.

I managed to make it through bankruptcy and divorce, because instead of letting them become excuses, I simply moved forward. And I am a much happier, more successful man today because of it.

LEADERSHIP
I even see it in Washington. Our president routinely blames Congress for not getting things done. I heard the DNC chairwoman the other day, defending the president in this regard, saying "it's hard to get Congress to work together when the Senate minority leader has stated that his number one goal is to get Obama out of office."

COME ON! Do you really think that Democrats did not have getting Bush out of office as a goal? Or Reagan for that matter? Or Republicans toward Clinton? And yet, in all these cases, with good leadership, they worked together. Clinton, as much as I didn't like his policies, was a good leader, because he worked with Gingrich et al, and got things done.

But Obama makes the excuse, and other Democrats back him up on the excuse.

Is it right for McConnell to say his number one goal is removing Obama from office? Probably not. But that does not mean they cannot work together. Good leadership overcomes these obstacles. Bad leadership makes excuses.

THERE IS NO EXCUSE
There is no excuse so great that it actually makes failure into success.

Even if an excuse is valid in itself, it accomplishes nothing. You can give me an excuse for not having any food, but that does not make food magically appear in your refrigerator. It may make me feel pity for you and give you something.

But then, you are no longer a person of spirit. Rather, you are an object of pity. You have lost spiritual value in the eyes of others, and while your body may be cared for, your spirit goes numb.

And once your spirit is numb, you are easy to control. You are like an animal at that point. My dog will do anything for me when he sees a treat in my hand. I give him what he wants, and he does anything for it. He is an animal, and this is acceptable.

YOU ARE A HUMAN; THEREFORE, IT IS UNACCEPTABLE.

If an excuse gets you what you want, it is at the expense of your human spirit.

Is it really worth it?

Why I'm here

I am here because I love liberty. I love America. I love the ways and the reasons our country was founded.

As a Christian man, I believe there is more to life than just the physical. An atheist friend of mine often complains that, while many Christians do good things for other people (e.g. feeding the hungry), they always do it with the ulterior motive of "recruiting" those people to the church. I don't call that an ulterior motive, though.

You see, as a Christian, I believe that it is important to feed the body. But it is far more important to feed the soul and the spirit. The body is temporary, and physical food is even more temporary. But spiritual food lasts forever -- much longer than the body itself.

So the human body is far less important than the human spirit.

IN THE BEGINNING
The human spirit is of the utmost importance. And that is where the importance of the founding of America comes in. America was founded on the idea of freedom from England, but also the idea of individual liberty. Those who were living in the colonies were much more rugged, much more self-sufficient. The government did not give them what it gave to those in England, so they got used to making it on their own.

Then they found that liberty is like a great drug. That is, if you have a little, you want more. It is a first taste of freedom.

Remember when you turned 18 and just wanted to get out of your parents' house? That freedom. The open road. Your own place. It was invigorating. What about the excitement and pride when you bought your first car without a cosigner? Or your first home? It was a new, exciting world -- no longer would someone else's thinking dictate how you lived your life.

That's where our founders were -- they found independence, not only collectively, but also individually. Liberty. Freedom. Opportunity that would not be stifled by the will of another.

So they marched on and decided to make their liberty official. They determined that the oppression they had felt was a result of a government that ruled over them. So they decided to try it the other way -- they would rule over their government.

And it worked!!!! People had liberty rather than an overbearing government, and they were able to create their own prosperity and happiness.

What a victory for the human spirit!!!!


THE REGRESSIVE MOVEMENT
But then others started to lose sight of the beauty of this arrangement. They began wanting the government to do things for them, to give them stuff, to fix their problems. They lost sight of the beauty of self-sufficiency, and we began the slow march toward dependence once again.

FDR was the worst for this. The entire regressive movement was to blame, though.

In olden times, people depended upon, and were subservient to, their governments, in most societies. Individual liberty the way we tried it, the "noble experiment," was a new idea in the grand scheme of things. Progression is moving forward, and regression is moving backward. Because socialists who call themselves "progressive" desire to move in a direction where government acts more like a parent of a young child, I choose not to call them progressives, but rather, regressives.

So the Regressives sought to make people more comfortable -- or perhaps just less uncomfortable. They sold it as meeting everyone's needs. But what they didn't tell people was that, in order to make everyone equal in their outcomes, they would need to lower the outcomes of many. They left that out of the sales pitch, so people could envision a better life for all, even though that is not really what was being sold.

Ask anyone living on social security -- they are not rolling in dough. It is not a high-on-the-hog proposal. But that is what regressivism would bring to everyone. Then there's one problem -- it's easier for a retired person to live on less, with mortgages paid off and whatnot. But those in the Regressive Movement would have all Americans live this way, in their utopian ideal. It will necessarily bring down standards of living. But at the same time, everyone will have health care and food. Just not as much as they do now.

A GODLESS WORLD
This reflects a situation a far cry from where we started. You see, our country was founded because our founders realized an aspect of the human spirit they had never seen before. It was a coming-of-age of humanity.

But then Americans began to abandon God. In doing so, they forgot that they had spirits. They started to think that the physical body was the end-all be-all.

Regressivism feeds and cares for the body (minimally). But it ignores the spirit.

Our collective American spirit has long been in a state of atrophy. As a result, many Americans look at regressivism and envision a utopia. Sadly, that utopia will result in a lower standard of living for all, and a crushed spirit. Those who are controlling it will have a great deal of power -- after all, once you break a society's spirit, that society is easily controlled.

And that seems to be the dream of many in power right now who call themselves Liberals.

Traditionally, liberals want to go the new way, where conservatives want to hang on to the old. But our country uses the labels backwards. Our founders were liberals, but their positions are those which are now described as conservative (or, more appropriately, libertarian).

So we need to find a way to revive that spirit. We need to find a way to get the government to leave people alone again. We, as a society, are the 25-year-old that has given up on God, given up on finding a job, and chosen to live in his parents' basement, sitting in his boxers and blogging. (By the way, that's not me -- I'm 37, a tenured teacher, and sitting in the living room of my own house blogging. Fully clothed).

We need to encourage government to get out of the Robin-Hood business and get back to the tough love of a parent kicking their kid out. Guess what that kid usually does .... he finds a way to make it on his own. We need our society to do this.