Great Quotes: Ludwig Von Mises

The aforementioned individual was a widely acclaimed economist and political philsopher of his time. Born in 1881 in what is now Liviv, Ukraine, he became a great leader in the classical liberal movement and in advancing the Austrian School of Economic though (libertarianism and extremely laissez faire economics, respectively). Justifying his opinion that government ought not to be in the business of protecting people from their own foolishness, he opined in his great book Human Action, as follows:
Opium and morphine are certainly dangerous and habit forming drugs. But once a principle is admitted that it is the duty of government to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments. A good case could be made out in favor of the prohibition of alcohol and nicotine. And why limit the government’s benevolent providence to the protection of the individual’s body only? Is not the harm a man can inflict on his mind and soul even more disastrous than bodily evils? Why not prevent him from reading bad books and seeing bad plays, from looking at bad paintings and statues and from hearing bad music?

The passage struck a chord with for the same reason it did for the great skeptic and libertarian Michael Shermer, who said of the passage that it  “…resonated with me because his analogue from the physical to the ideological is so effective in conveying the central message of freedom and liberty[.]”

“Essential” government handouts

My advocacy of abolishing government charity like welfare and international food aid has been quietly growing over the last few years. Authors like John Stossel and Fredric Bastiet have caused me to criticize government action on such matteres, prefering instead that the government content itself to national defense and basic matters of public peace.

My reasoning here is multifacted, ranging from  philosophical meditations on government theory to practical cause and effect studies that issue a rebuke to those who have endless faith in government policy to fix problems that are better and traditionally left to the volunatary action of private individuals.

Following up on that note, its interesting to note that in spite of what action-hungary politicians are likely to tell you, it may be that foreign aid, whether cash or commodity (food, etc) is not all that “essential” or “critical” so solving whatever “crisis” happens to be at hand. An observation by the Council on Foreign Relations seems particularly provoking to those who subscribe to this view:

“With the plight of the hungry so acute, the calls for additional food aid have grown. So far this year, the World Food Program spent $650 million—compared with the $400 million spent during the same period in 2007 to buy roughly the same amount of food (BusinessWeek). But some experts point out that the aid system keeps people hungry in the long run even as it feeds them in the short term. Alec van Gelder and Caroline Boin of the International Policy Network, a development think tank based in London, argue that aid has actually depressed development (Business Daily) in Africa. They note “70 [percent] of Africans who live off the land have falling incomes and life expectancy, while Asian countries that got little or no aid have prospered.”

Interesting point. African countries recieve lots of aid and fail. Asian countries recieved little or none and succeed. But politicians argue that such programs are essential anyway.

No posts in awhile

Its been too long since I’ve posted. I didn’t know a senior year in high school could be so busy. A couple of quick thoughts:

1. I hope to get back to writing regularly. I would like the theme of my next few posts to be about some theological issues, specifically addressing the problem of omnipotence (can God create a rock so heavy he cannot lift it?) and I’d also like to write about Abortion. Its a huge issue that should have been on the forefront of the presidential election. But, like most controversial issues, it gets put on the back burner by mutual consent, for no candidate wants to be appear to be too intractable and unreasonable by taking a monolithic stance on a moral issues; thus the business of politics sustains and deepens its tendency to disconnect the voters and disgust them with politics, especially on the Republican side.
2. John McCain will lose big. I may be about to sacrifice my entire future political fortune by making a prediction, but I”ll go ahead and say that the Republicans are in for a bigger swatting than they anticipate. Everyone knows that they’ll get beat, but I predict they will get crushed beyond the most depressing expectations. So for the prediction: McCain will get 200 or few electoral votes. There it is. I might delete that in hopes of saving my future political credibility, but I doubt it. If my political potential dies by the inaccuracy of my prediction, so be it, and may I calmly kiss my political aspirations goodbye.
3. I’m going to launch a campaign. I’m officially campaigning for politics. No official party yet. That will come later. For now, I’m going to espouse a few major policy issues, like abortion, taxes, and regulation. The rest of the time, I”ll be speaking out on hypocrisy in the Washington System in both parties, the senseless frills and privileges that accompany those who are unfortunate enough to be called “politicians” and so on.
4. I think if Ron Paul were the candidate on the Republican ticket, the party wouldn’t be losing so badly.
5. I think if Ron Paul were a little more polished as a speaker and communicator, then he would’ve have been on the ticket.
6. I’ll develop more thoughts later.

On Obama and Taxes

My good friend Will Simpson over at Will’s Perspective wrote a fantastic article on Obama’s tax plans (note the plural) this morning. The excerpt below will lead you to his post:

A preface on tax cuts:  Congress writes them, not the president.  Anyone want to take a  wager on how likely Democrats in Congress are to cut taxes for anyone?  Major Garrett of FoxNews is beginning to refer to potential problems for John McCain from an unlikely issue: taxes.  Apparently, the American people are beginning to believe the propoganda from the Obama campaign about taxes, while factcheck.org is criticizing McCain claims and the new, post-partisan, positive Obama campaign perpetually calls McCain the “sleaziest, most dishonest campaign in American history.”  Yes, those are the words repeatedly used.

Here’s the facts:

1) Obama’s on his third tax plan….(continue reading here)

BornAliveTruth.org makes CNN and Hannity and Colmes!

BornAliveTruth.org was noticed by the CNN Political Ticker yesterday, and generated 222 comments before commenting was disabled. Some of the comments really intrigued me. A lot of sad assumptions about the unborn:

“My Body, My Choice !!”

“I am not a woman, so I cannot partake in this thread.”

“Obama’s opponents just keep shooting blindly hoping that eventually, something’ll hit. It’s a pitiful strategy.”

“So, you want women to raise kids resulting from a rape or incest? Where are their rights? You love to see those women victimized the 2nd times??”

“Abortion is a fundamental right of liberty. What other rights will the Republicans take from us?”

So lets face it: There’s a lot of bunk.

You can read the article here.

Gianna Jesson also appeared on Hannity and Colmes two days ago. Of course, Sean Hannity was all for Jesson, and Colmes tried to put in a word about how Obama doesn’t support “infanticide”. Jesson and Hannity had some strong points in return. Check it out:

BornAliveTruth.org…Check it out today

Someday I should write an essay on an introduction to pro-life apologetics, or, how to defend the pro-life view using science, logic, and observation.

If I ever get into politics, abortion will become my number one issue. Millions of innocent lives are at stake. My passion against abortion really took off when I saw a lecture by pro-life apologist Scott Klusendorf. In his 2 hour lecture, he outlines several cogent scientific and logical reasons to believe that life begins at conception, and his presentation totally blew his opponents argumennts out of the water.

Then I did some reading on my own, and was stunned to read the story of Gianna Jesson, an abortion survivor who goes around the country now speaking for the pro life cause. Abortion survivor? I didn’t know there was such a thing, but my discovery that there are motivates me all the more, and makes me wonder all the more how politicians can talk about a woman’s “right” to an abortion with a straight face.

I watched some videos of Gianna Jesson on youtube and was moved by what I saw. Hopefully someday someone will make a documentary of her story for the world to see on the screen, but until then, I was really pleased to find this TV ad that will be airing in a few states as the presidential campaigns head for the home stretch.

Be sure to check out the 527 website sponsoring the ad, BornAliveTruth.org

A slight amendment…

I’ve decided I can’t get away from political blogging. Besides, faith and politics can mix to a certain extent. Just how far I’m not sure, but I’ve decided to blog a little about politics again. Apologetics will still be the focus, but politics will not be excluded.

 

Yours truly.

Why did you not read this article? You’ll never have the chance to read it again. An interesting experiment…

NOTE: Read through this all the way quickly. 

I suspect only familiar wordpress users will understand fully how this is going to work, but let’s give it a shot.

The WordPress Blog server has, as we know, millions of blogs, posting thousands of article each day and hour under hundreds of tags. Tags provide a way for people to find articles they think will interest them. When an article is tagged under, say, “politics” a link to that article will appear on a list under that tag name on wordpress.com. So, suppose I write an article and tag it under “politics”. Immediately, a link to my new post will appear on the list of wordpress blog articles that have been tagged under politics. Users interested in politics will be perusing that list, see my article pop up when they refresh the page, and hopefully, click on the article. 

The neat thing is that an article can be tagged several times on different themes, and thus, appear on several wordpress tag lists at once, thus increasing the liklihood of it getting clicked. 

SO HERE IS THE EXPERIMENT: If I write this article, what kind of hits will I get if I increase the number of tags? Suppose I tag this article under a whole array of things, and for the purpose of experiementation, a whole array of unrelated tags? I am going to tag this article under the most famous wordpress taglines, as follows: 

• Life
• Music
• News
• Politics
• Barack Obama
• Culture
• Christianity
• Family
• Travel
• Photography
• Sports
• Random
• Entertainment
• Religion

We’ll try just that for now, and see what happens. Hypothesis is, if I tag this post under so many popular tags, then the traffic will increase substantially. 

So, with that in mind, if you care to, express in the comments section how you found this article. 

Missing links in the Associated Press report…

I know I promised my small readership that I would develop more central themes and issues for my blog to cover, but tonight I must dissent from myself just this once…

Those who know me may be aware, to varying degrees, of my intense skepticism of evolution. Indeed, my previous article on evolution issues, one of the most visited posts on this website, I think leaves no doubt as to my position of this matter. There seems to be no end to the stream of evidence and logic that consistently works against Darwinism, and no end in sight for the consistency with which the dissent from Darwinism is suppressed and ignored by major media and scientific outlets.

Although I mostly limit my research to topics like Christian Apologetics, Politics, and Public Policy, it is not unheard of for me to find myself intruiged by some scientific discovery or anecdote. Such was my situation this evening that brought back several reflections on Darwinism and media reporting in general as relates to that theory (note “theory” not “fact”)

My attention was immediatlely drawn to this article written by the Associated Press and linked to the front page of yahoo.com. The yahoo headline read “New Flatfish fossils solve missing link in evolutionary theory”.

The article explained that “Some odd-looking fish fossils discovered in the bowels of several European museums may help solve a lingering question about evolutionary theory, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday. The 50 million-year-old fossils — which have one eye near the top of their heads — help explain how flatfish such as flounder, sole and halibut developed the strange but useful trait of having both eyes on one side.”

The article then went on to describe various facts of interest that made for a decently written article in many respects, but even as I was reading it, two things immediately came to mind:

First: Will “missing links” really provide that panacea that evolutionists are so quietly desperate for?

I think not. While the absence is missing links is hailed by the oft-supressed skeptics of evolution, I think there is little chance that finding a even a substantial number of “missing links” will prove anything or convince anybody. As a point of debate, it is too easy for the creationist/intelligent design advocate to argue three things, to start with. First, say something like “The presence of ‘missing’ links does not prove anything for  the evolutionist because it is just as reasonable to say that God created many similar things on day one (or two, etc) without evolution”. Second, a legitimate point could be made by saying that “the similarity between two things does not prove the ancestry of the objects in question”. I find two similar fossils. What does that prove? One thing, and one thing only: That two fossils look the same (further investigation might show that there are those who believe it proves more). That’s it. To say as much as Darwinists want to would be to commit the logical fallacy of non-sequitar–‘it does not follow’. Just because a Honda hubcap is compatible with a Chevy rim doesn’t prove that Chevy evolved from Honda 60 million years ago. Thirdly, the people concerned with propelling this message as a support of Darwinism do so while making an important mistake by failing to differentiate between macro and micro evolution. There’s an important difference; micro evolution is something that everyone, whether Darwinist or not, are perfectly aware of and at peace with. Micro evolution refers to small changes that can occur over time within a specified species. Breeding dogs will create diversity in kind–retrievers, labs, pointers, setters, shuitzou, etc. Nobody disuputes this. The point is, whatever you started with, you still have. We started out with dogs, and we still have dogs…just different variations of the same creature.

The debate comes in over macro-evolution. This refers to the idea that, given enough time (or chance) huge changes within species by combining many many small changes together will result in an entirely different entity altogether (like from microbes, to monkeys, to humans). No substantial missing link establishing this branch of evolution has been established; and when they have been in the past, no great length of time has passed before they are discredited. Do we have fossils showing how a whale graduated from whale-ness into lizard-ness? There is no such thing. And even if one were established, we would simply refer to the first argument presented in this post.

So two branches of evolution: Micro-evolution, which states that small changes within a species will occur while still maintaining fundamental characteristics, and Macro-evolution, which states that large changes will occur over time that result in an entirely different species. Creationists agree with the small changes, and evolutionists are hard pressed to substantiate the historicity of the large ones.

Does the article presented by the Associated Press on the front page of Yahoo! do anything to resolve this struggle and give a victory point to the Darwinists? By no means. Notice that the article refers primarily to the fact that some flatfish had one eye, and some had two. Does this represent huge change such that we end up with entirely different species? No.  It simply substantiates something both sides of the creation/evolution debate agree on…that changes within a species overtime can occur. But notice that we still have the same fundamental being: fish. This does nothing to resolve the chief point of dispute between creationists and evolutionists, although the media made the article headline seem to hope we’d be led to believe otherwise.

Speaking of the media leads me to my second major reflection of this post. While the first one had to do with the actual evidence and logic of the evolution debate, this second thought concerns the media only. Look through the article carefully, and see if you don’t notice something:

There is no dissent presented in the article at all.

No alternative viewpoint. Usually the media inserts phrases like “but critics say” or “…but according to…”. This is especially true for political coverage, but it is the mark of every semi-balanced media report. Yet no such regular and essential feature appears here. I would think it should, since many qualified authorities would differ with the point of view presented in this article. According to this report from WorldNetDaily, (in response to an assertion by PBS that “virtually every scientist in the world believes the [Darwinian] theory to be true”) over 600 PhD scientists signed a document expressing a “skeptic[ism] of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”

“Examination…should be encouraged”? I think so, but I guess the fair and balanced media didn’t get the message. Why? I’m not aware. Ask Bernard Goldberg

Clarification regarding commentary on liberty…

Insightful questioning and commentary by my good friend Will at WillsPerspective has been well placed and has persuaded me that a clarification is order.

At some point during our exchange in commentary over my previous post, I proposed that “I don’t know exactly what parts of the bible to enforce. But I think that discussion [should] take place. My inclination right now is to say that the Government today cannot take any more power than the civil government of the Old Testament. Church issues should then be left to the church, and family issues to the family.”

And in response, Will made an appropriate observation and suggestion: “The Old Testament government was extremely powerful (stoning girls for fornication, etc) and I don’t think we would want to take our New Testament model of liberty that far, so I would encourage you to re-think that standard.”

Let me say here and now that I hate death and glory in its absence. Capital punishment is a serious matter,  and by no means do I propose we expand it to crimes other than murder. Nor do I propose that we follow every single statue of Levitical law to the letter. Especially when it comes to matters of capital crime. It seems to me (and I welcome any alternative view on this for consideration) that there is room for grace and mercy in light of New Testament principles. The story of Jesus forgiving the adulteress woman and saving her from stoning comes to mind.

What then did I mean by my statement reproduced above?

Aside from the fact that I never actually said or intended to imply that we should expand capital crimes to Old Testament levels but rather simply stated that the modern civil government should not expand its jurisdiction beyond Old Testament jurisdiction, my point was primarily not that we should necessarily re-install every single mandate from the Old Testament, but rather, we should view the seperation of powers and jurisdiction in the Bible as a foundation for government today.

Here are two examples of what this would look like:

Capital Punishment: Capital punishment should remain in the hands of civil government if it is to be practiced at all. Churches and families should not hold this power (the Catholic church tried to do this in the Dark Ages). Since the pattern from the Bible seems to hold that the civil magistrates should administer the death penalty, it should stay that way. What is a capital crime in today’s world is very much very much debatable. Personally, The farthest I would go in allowing capital punishment is only in cases of willful murder. Even so, serious discussion should be given to whether capital cases are tried correctly and in a consistent mannerl, in light of the recent spate of DNA exonerations. But this particular matter is for another discussion.

Welfare/Providing for the needy: Those who are in need in the absence of laziness should be cared for, as demonstrated by the Levitical law and by the pattern of the early church in the Book of Acts. There is no Biblically sanctioned pattern where civil magistrates are involved in the wholesale redistribution of wealth. Rather, this task was given to the individuals, churches, and, in the modern times, charitable/voluntary organizations. There are other reasons to oppose welfare as well, but for the purpose of biblical pattern, we see no precedent that endorses the civil government being involved in this matter.

Again, the goal here is to observe patterns and principles of the separation of powers and duties in the Old Testament, not necessarily adopt every statute to the “letter of the law”. There are separate and distinct roles that are best carried out by various entities in society, and I propose, that as Christians, we take our pattern of separated powers and jurisdiction from the Word of God.