Top 5 Hindrances To The Liberty Of A Nation

  1. The idea that God is not God, the State is God.
  2. The idea that adults need a Nanny.
  3. A prohibitionistic mindset.
  4. Choosing a foreign policy of bondage rather than a foreign policy of freedom and peace.
  5. Forgetting that government needs to obey the moral law.

Machen’s Thoughts On War, Imperialism, and Patriotism

J. G. Machen was a great theologically conservative theologian who was a professor at Princeton and went on to found Westminster Theological Seminary, and led to the formation of the OPC.

Here are some of his thoughts on war, imperialism, and patriotism.

“I am opposed to all imperial ambitions, wherever they may be cherished and with whatever veneer of benevolent assimilation they may be disguised.”

“Princeton is a hot-bed of patriotic enthusiasm and military ardor, which makes me feel like a man without a country.”

A man without a country. Sometimes, for various reasons, one sure feels like that!

Why I’m Not Voting Tonight

Today is the election here in Canada. I won’t be voting. I can hear the gasps already. I’m not against voting in general, and my basic stance is that I should vote if I can sincerely get behind one of the candidates/parties.

My reasoning for not going to the voting booth this year, is basically this:

A. No party or candidate in my riding in (my opinion) seems to have a track record which indicates they will protect individual liberty and limit the size and scope of government (which is intimately tied to personal economic liberty).

B.  So, then, if I were to vote, I’d be faced with voting for what, in my mind, is an unworthy party just to try and keep an ostensibly more unworthy party out.

C. Realistically speaking, the impact of my vote is small (actually, to say it is small may be an understatement), even if it were a low turnout in a small, hotly contested riding.

D. But supposing the impact of my vote were significant, I would have to weigh the positive impact of my vote working toward keeping that other party out of office with the negative impact of emboldening the less unworthy party to continue in its unworthiness and not change.

E. Also, supposing the impact of my vote were significant,  I would find voting for a party I don’t really like and can’t really ultimately support on their own merits distasteful.

F. An additional complication to the things I mention is this: In Canada we do not vote directly for our Prime Minister, but rather for parliamentary representatives, the proportions of which determine the Prime Minister. So in addition to the problems outlined in D & E, we also face a potential disconnect between my support of the Prime Ministerial candidate and the other person from his party (the parliamentary rep) that I would need to vote for in order to work toward getting the correct PM into office. So in some situations one might want to vote in support of Joe Smith from the Rhino Party in the race for PM, but not support or condone John Doe (also from the Rhino Party) in his campaign to become parliamentary rep.  And there is no way to separate the two. So the discerning, critical voter is often faced with that dillema.

Ultimately, you may think I’m over thinking this or having too picky of a criteria and therefore excluding everyone. But I don’t think its that. I do want to have realistic expectations of leaders, but on the other hand I believe if voting is important, it would be important to try to be consistent and make a good decision. It is in light of a desire to be consistent and vote according to my conscience that I am not voting.

Does that make one a bad citizen? I don’t think so.   It’s quite ironic the way the romantic and sometimes even messianic themes come up in relation to voting. I see it as a mildly significant thing. I think it is often over inflated. The state is not our salvation. Neither is voting.

It’s quite ironic that a zealous politico could look at a man or woman who loves their spouse, cares for their family, is successful and innovative in business,  faithful to their friends, faithful to their convictions, generous and involved in their church and/or other organizations and yet who doesn’t vote, and declare them as a “bad citizen” and “helping the bad party get in” and “not allowed to complain”.   The thing is, this person who does all those other things and yet doesn’t vote has identified the things that are more effective than voting. They’ve identified other areas to exert their energies  (areas that are far more effective in changing society and having a voice) and have done WAY more to benefit society than someone who merely voted. Voting is a small, easy thing to do and doesn’t require the dedication that these more effective society transforming things require. So why do we attach such high importance to voting often over and against them?

So I just want to stick up for non-voters and say, non-voters have a right to complain (as much as voters do) and can be good citizens (there are good and bad citizens among non-voters just like there are among voters). They have chosen to not get involved in the process for various reasons, and quite frankly, sometimes they can be very valid ones.

Problems with Left vs. Right Classification

“This is a good place to enter an initial complaint about the use of the terms ‘left’, ‘right’, and ‘center’ in current political discussions. The usage implies that there is a single spectrum along which any particular packet of political views views may be located. Are you in favor of free trade and against high import duties? This, apparently puts you on the ‘right’. Are you in favor of extending the franchise in South Africa to black persons? Ah! You are on the ‘left’! And if you are in favor of both, then what? What if you disapprove of socialism (which puts you on the ‘right’) but also disapprove of dictatorships (which puts you on the ‘left’–unless the dictatorships in question happen to be Marxist, in which case, somehow, your disapproval now puts you back on the ‘right’)? Plainly, this usage is futile.”

– Jan Narveson in The Libertarian Idea, p.11

Egyptian Thoughts on Egypt in Revolt

Egyptian Revolution - Man Burning Photo of Mubarak

Egyptian actor and ambassador Mahmoud Kabil to UNICEF  in an interview was quite succinct when he described the role of technology in this uprising:

I think if the Internet, Twitter or Facebook did not exist, we would have another 30 years of Mubarak.

In a Huffington Post article, Egyptian-born American Sahar Taman explains her view of the Egyptian revolution in  My Experience With Egypt’s Central Security Forces.

Here are some excerpts:

“The fundamental problem is decades of life without personal freedoms; the lack of freedom of speech, assembly, association, press, and religion. The government enforced that through menacing”

“Although not always obvious to my American friends, Hosni Mubarak has ruled Egypt with an iron hand for 30 years and public frustration has been mounting.”

“Egypt’s 30 year martial law limits all personal freedoms and Egyptians have never had the right to bear arms. The support for the protests from expatriate Egyptians and other Arabs is enormous and there is a fervor on the ‘Net’ as Egyptians call it. Recognizing the power of the ‘Twitter’ revolution, the government has blocked the country’s Internet and mobile communications.”

“So, it is understandable why Egyptian citizens are on the streets today, braving tear gas and rubber bullets, defying curfews and enduring electronic blackouts. Quite simply, they have seen thirty years of suppression and intimidation, and they have had enough….[they] do not know an Egypt without this oppression. But they want something different. Today many of them are on the streets now demanding the government to ‘Go.’”

Carl Trueman on Foreign Policy Hypocracy

“Growing up the 1970s and 1980s, I could never quite understand why the Right wanted a boycott of the 1980 Olympics over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but opposed sporting bans on South Africa, while the Left was outraged at any attempt to boycott the Olympics, because “politics should be kept out of sport”, yet reviled any sports person who had contact with South Africa. The answer, of course, was neither side was really concerned about freedom”

– Carl Trueman in Republocrat: Confessions of a Liberal Conservative

Scattered Thoughts About The Wikileaks Saga

  • If we are to accept that leaking a genuine document that could lead to the endangerment of military personnel is to be punishable by death (for treason), what punishment should there be for the endangerment to military personnel caused by those who initiate a war executed, if it be determined to be conducted on illegitimate or forged grounds?
  • Contrary to popular utterances by various people (such as Sarah Palin?) Julian Assange can’t be tried for treason. People who think he can should look up the legal definition of treason.
  • One wonders whether the current warrant against Assange would be given such weight and international concern–if he were not the founder of the very controversial Wikileaks.
  • I have no desire to defend Assange against any allegations against him which may or may not be true.  Nor do I have any knowledge by which to weigh his innocence or guilt. However,  it should be noted that the sexual charges against him were dropped a while ago and then reopened now.  And I would also say that from what I can tell, they remain allegations. And furthermore, there is much dispute within the Swedish courts as to what exactly happened and how to classify it legally (its not a clear-cut case from what I can tell).
  • A whistle-blower, by definition, has both friends and enemies.  But only the most totalitarian society could deny that he/she places a vital role in many circumstances (you may dispute a certain instance or style of whistle-blowing, but I can’t see how you could deny that it serves a very crucial role at times).
  • Not having an outlet roughly similar to Wikileaks is scary.  Not that there is something special or sacred about Wikileaks. I am not attached to it at all and haven’t even really paid any attention to it until this controversy.  But in theory, it is filling the void that is left by the incompetency of the modern cookie-cutter press. These web sites are finding themselves niches to fill the gaps and do what the media should have been sort of doing in the first place.   We need to be very, very, very careful about hanging the people that document what is going on.  Even if they rub us the wrong way.  Hanging whistle-blowers and investigative journalists (or even poser journalists) is a very bad practice if you want to have a free country.  If the people who report escapades get in more trouble than the people who commit them, then guess what? There will be more escapades.
  • The practical concern for the safety of military personnel seems to spring up in certain people’s discussion of the secrecy of war plans, but oddly enough not nearly as much when they discuss the concept or validity of the war itself. This seems a bit shifty to me.
  • I have no desire to see any military personnel come to harms way, but often I’m skeptical as to whether many of the appeals to the safety of military personnel really have far more to do with a desire to preserve the “PR” of the war rather than the human lives of the military people involved (I’m not saying there aren’t people who are genuinely concerned, but rather just that we shouldn’t blindly assume that everyone who rhetorically says they are concerned about the safety of military personnel is actually primarily concerned about that).
  • As Ron Paul has said in relation to this hoopla, “In a society where truth becomes treason, then we’re in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it.”
  • Whatever you think about Assange and Wikileaks, it one thing seems overwhelmingly clear: in governments across this globe there is a general theme of (a) way too much secrecy and (b) little or no real, substantial, non-theater  accountability.
  • As of late, Amazon and Paypal, both services which Wikileaks used  have been crucial in restricting Wikileaks ability to go about their thing in the midst of this controversy
  • Besides my (a) desire to see way less secrets and more accountability in government, (b) desire to find out what is really happening in wars and foreign affairs, (c) desire to live in a free society, (d) Love of gutsy internet startup ideas, (e) desire to see a free flow of information about what is happening in the world from many different perspectives, even if they don’t agree with mine, (f) desire to see totalitarianism squirm in its seat, (g) to see some really effective way to keep the government accountable from the outside, (h) a desire to have a press and internet that is as free as possible from tampering, I don’t give two hoots about Wikileaks
  • I’m just sitting back and looking on with curiosity to see what actually comes out of this

A Neglected Issue in the Debates over the Mosque in NYC

One thing that is not often talked about in the debates over the building of a mosque in New York City is the concept of property rights.

Do we have them? Can people/organizations/companies do what they want with their property? Or do we need the government to tell us what to do with it? Are we allowed to do unpopular things with our property? Are we allowed to build things that are distasteful to others on our property?

Quite frankly: I think Islam is a false religion (if I believe that the premises of Christianity are true, which I do, then I must come to that conclusion since they make a number of opposing claims). However, I also support the right of Muslims to build Mosques where ever they want, provided they own the property and have obtained it legitimately.  By doing this I am standing within a very Western and Christian tradition of political thought and liberty.

Of course, many people who are busy bantering about property rights, aren’t willing to support it in this case. I’ve observed that the commitment to property rights of many conservatives is rather fickle.

In other words what any conservatives are really saying when they support “private property” is “you can do whatever you want with your property, as long as I’m OK with it”.  But just like you don’t believe in freedom of speech unless you are willing to protect speech that is unpopular and distasteful to you, you don’t believe in property rights unless you are willing to protect a person or organizations right to build things that are unpopular and distasteful to you.  By definition, popular and favorable things don’t need the protection of any liberty (ie. property rights or freedom of speech).  It’s the unpopular, distasteful things that need the protection (and what is unpopular, of course, can shift over time).   If the building of a particular building on a particular property is distasteful to the majority of Americans, and this process is conducted lawfully, then what is needed more than anything else from a political perspective, is the protection of those property rights.

Jerome Tuccille on Rand & Objectivist Fanatacism

Jerome Tuccille has a lot of good nuggets on Objectivism and Ayn Rand in It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand.

On Rand as a Totalitarian:

“Objectivism can be a wonderfully appealing religion substitute for disaffiliated Jews and Catholics from the middle class who turn to it with mania formerly reserved for their ancestoral religion–and also to the sons and daughters of Old American WASPS, brought up in the Protestant ethic of hard work and self-sufficiency. It is a closed system of ideas, even more so than the conservative Catholicism in vogue until the middle sixties. Under the most doctrinaire of Catholic upbringings there is a certain margin for flexibility. The boundaries are clearly defined, but you are permitted an area of deviation from the straight and narrow before stepping onto the wild shores of heresy. To a lesser extent the same holds true for Judaism.

Not so under the tutelage of the Rand.

Objectivism is an inflexible package deal. Ayn Rand, having established herself as a radical individualist, an uncompromising mudracker and free thinker by the 1950′s, then proceeded to ereect a tight system of logic embracing every conceivable area of human endeavor. Economics, politics, psychology, child-rearing, sex, literature, even cigarette-smoking–Rand has written about them all, issuing her pronouncements on each subject in turn. Curiously enough, for a woman who started out as a champion of the independent mind, she began to consider her own ideas as natural corollaries of truth and objectivity.

‘Objective reality’ was what Rand said it was.

‘Morality’ was conformity to the ethic of Ayn Rand.

‘Rationality’ was synonymous with the thinking of Ayn Rand.

To be in disagreement with the ideas of Ayn Rand was to be, by definition, irrational and immoral.”

(from It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand by Jerome Tuccille p.15-16)

On The Place of Humor in Objectivism:

“Smiling, when it happened at all, was indulged in surrepitiously, since humor in the Objectivist handbook was considered immoral and anti-life, a device contrived to destroy man’s capacity of greatness”

(from It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand by Jerome Tuccille p.22)

On The Objectivist Theory of Litearture

“My second crisis of conscience revolved around the Randian theory of literature. For someone whose tastes in literature ran the gamut from Hemingway to Maugham to Fitzgerald to Steinbeck to Duerrenmatt to Cheever to Mailer to Salinger to Evelyn Waugh to Perelman to Vonnegut, naturalists and satirists to the last, it was a bit difficult to accept the theory that naturalism and comedy were immoral and anti-life, or that Mickey Spillane and Ian Fleming were the greatest living practitioners of the romanticism of Victor Hugo”

(from It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand by Jerome Tuccille p.23)

The excommunication of Murray Rothbard:

“The falling away of Murray Rothbard began..Shortly afterward it became known that Rothbard’s wife, Joey, was a devout Protestant, a practicing Christian who actually believed that faith an altruism had a positive moral value. When the last tremours caused by this revelation finally faded away, a pall of silence fell over the living room. There was a Christian in the house…a real, live, breathing Protestant who admitted belief in the existence of a Supreme Being! A heretic such as this was occupying the armchair in Ayn Rand’s living room. And was married to one of Rand’s most gifted protoges [Murray Rothbard], no less, who now sat beside her with a look of villainous unconcern on his face.

Well, if Murray Rothbard’s wife was a Christian there could only be one logical explanation for it: she had obviously never read Ayn Rand’s proof that a Supreme Being does not, did not, will not, and could not exist. Ever

…This incident marked the beginning of the end of Murray Rothbard’s eminent position in the Objectivist hierarchy…[h]e…had begun to question the wisdom of many Randian attitudes on political, and particularly, historical affairs. He compounded his crime of being happily married to a practicing altruist at the following meeting when he refused to leave his wife and take a more rational mate.

…Shortly afterward there was a meeting at which he found himself denounced for not smoking cigarettes.

…Since it was unthinkable for anyone to leave the Randian nest of his own accord, and emergency meeting of meeting of the Senior Collective was called to hear the various charges of deviationism that had been compiled against Rothbard over the past six months.”

(from It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand by Jerome Tuccille p.29-33)

Gresham J. Machen: Libertarian

Presbyterian theologian Gresham J. Machen is generally connected with the various theological controversies in Princeton in the early 1900′s and the founding of Westminister Theological Seminary and the OPC.

However, there is another aspect to his thought, specifically relating to politicial issues. Was he a libertarian? George Marsden, The Freeman, and other sources believe so!

Historian George Marsden called him “radically libertarian” and stated that he “opposed almost any extension of state power and took stands on a variety of issues. Like most libertarians, his stances violated usual categories of liberal or conservative.”

Daniel Walker said the following of him: “Machen is one of many prominent American defenders of political liberty and economic freedom who have been largely forgotten by a people intent on abandoning its heritage of freedom.”

Machen opposed the military draft during World War I and also opposed prohibition, two stances that might not seem to jive with the common caricature of how a theologically conservative Christian would think, especially in the early 1900′s.

Here are a few quotes right from Machen:

“Personality can only be developed in the realm of individual choice. And that realm, in the modern state, is being slowly but steadily eradicated.”

“Everywhere there rises before our eyes the specter of a society where security, if it is attained at all, will be attained at the expense of freedom, where the security that is attained will be the security of fed beasts in a stable, and where all the high aspirations of humanity will have been crushed by an all-powerful state.”

On education, he said “If you give the bureaucrats the children, you might as well give them everything else as well.” He also said: “Place the lives of children in their formative years, despite the convictions of their parents, under the intimate control of experts appointed by the state, force them to attend schools where the higher aspirations of humanity are crushed out, and where the mind is filled with the materialism of the day, and it is difficult to see how even the remnants of liberty can subsist.”