Category: Politics

Although I generally avoid discussing topics involving religion on this blog there are times that I come across an article that I feel warrants discussion here. I came across this article that argues for Christians to continue participating in the political process:

When Jesus walked the Earth and performed miracles, He required humans to trust Him and do the part they were told to do. Then the miracle came. For instance, at the wedding feast in Cana, Jesus required men to fill pots with water before He would provide more wine for the wedding party. If those men had not done their duty, it is unlikely Jesus would have added His part, the miracle.

What about the miracle of feeding 5,000 people with five loaves and two fishes? If the little boy had refused to share his lunch with Jesus, there would have been no miracle. There is no doubt that the Son of God could have created the loaves and fishes out of nothing if He wanted. But what He wanted was a person who would make the sacrifice that invites the miracle.

Before Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, He told some men to roll away the huge stone closing the grave. No doubt if He could raise to life someone who had been dead four days, He could move a stone, no matter how large. But Jesus required human agents to be involved. No matter how mi­nute a part a human being plays in God’s miracles, God chooses to make us an essential part of His greater plan.

Did you note that in each of these examples, Jesus did not expect people to work miracles? America needs a miracle! God is in the miracle-working business. The first ingredient of miracles is for man to invite the miracle and assist in the receiving of the miracle by hopefully and dutifully doing his part. If America’s enemies succeed in discouraging America’s patriots, if they can trick us into giving up hope and walking off the battlefield, how can we expect a miracle from God?

James A. Garfield as a young minister had an aversion to politics. But being a truth-seeker, he eventually saw in his Bible God’s instructions for civil government. He became convinced that a Christian’s duty was to participate in public affairs. Before becoming president in 1881, he wrote on the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence the following insightful and prophetic message: “Now more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerated ignorance, recklessness, and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave, and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature. If the next centennial [1976] does not find us a great nation … it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation did not aid in controlling the political forces.”

What I find interesting is that the author cites works of Jesus mentioned in the Bible to argue in favor of Christians involving themselves in the political process. The reason I find this interesting is because there is one thing never attributed to Jesus in the Bible, politics. Nowhere is it mentioned that Jesus ran for office in the Roman empire or campaigned for certain Roman politicians. I’m sure you’ve seen the bracelets inscribed with the phrase “What would Jesus do?” In fact the phrase has become so popular that it now has its own widely known acronym, WWJD. Answering that question generally relies on analyzing what Jesus was credited with doing in the Bible. Notice the miracles mentioned in the linked article. One miracle involved Jesus working to ensure a wedding celebration continued by turning water into wine. The second mentioned miracle involved Jesus feeding people by regenerating the remains of fish and bread. Miracle three involved Jesus raising a man from the dead. What all three of these stories have in common is that Jesus took direct action to fix a bad situation.

When the wedding party consumed all of the wine Jesus didn’t demand the state redistribute wine from those who had it to the wedding party. Sure, the wedding party could be argued to need wine more than other individuals in the area but no such argument was even brought up. Jesus never demanded the state provide more food for the hungry, he worked with what he had to feed who he could. In the story of Lazarus Jesus was urged to address the ailing Lazarus. When Jesus arrived Lazarus was already dead. Instead of demanding the Roman state invest money into researching a cure for Lazarus’s ailment Jesus took matters into his own hands. What would Jesus do? He wouldn’t use the political process to get the state to correct a bad situation, he would take direct action to help fix a bad situation.

In fact much of Jesus’s time was spent discussing charity in the form of helping those in need. Politics is the most ineffective method to help those in need. If you want to help feed the hungry you can run for office, demand your fellow politicians support a piece of legislation you wrote addressing the issue of the hungry, wait for the bill to be debated and passed, wait for a new bureau to be established that purports to help the hungry or an exiting bureau to be expanded to deal with the additional workload involved with feeding the hungry, and watch as a majority tax money collected under the guise of feeding the hungry is redirected to fund the new or expanded bureau and other state programs. In the end a great deal of time and money will be invested in creating a state organ to address the hungry and a majority of collected funds will be used to keep that organ alive instead of feeding the hungry.

The other option is to directly work to feed the hungry, which is the path chosen by organizations such as the Catholic Worker Movement. For those who haven’t heard of the Catholic Worker Movement it is an organization founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. The Catholic Worker Movement establishes, what it refers to as, Houses of Hospitality for the poor. Their Houses of Hospitality are aimed at offering immediate relief for those in need. What I find most interesting about the organization is that one of its founders, Dorothy Day, happened to be an anarchist (of the communist persuasion). Because of this it’s not surprising that she worked to establish an organization to directly help those in need instead of running for office or campaigning for a politician that claimed to support her desires. Anarchists, after all, focus on offering direct aid to those in need instead of relying on a nebulous bureaucracy to do it. Furthermore it’s not surprising to see that the Catholic Worker Movement is a radical organization that has tasked itself with creating a new society within the shell of the current society that focuses on ensuring everybody gets what they need to survive. While communism isn’t my thing I have no issue with those who wish to established voluntary communism and, in fact, support them (as I support any movement that aims to directly help those in need using voluntary methods).

How effective has the Catholic Worker Movement been? Considering the number of established Houses of Hospitality I’d say they’ve been pretty successful. And their success wasn’t due to the state, it was due to directly helping those in need just as Jesus was said to have.

On the other hand supposed Christians working within the state appear to be focused on forcing “Christian” (quotes used because the definition of Christian usually differs from politician to politicians) morality on the entire population. Instead of working to house the homeless, feed the hungry, and cure the sick most self-proclaimed Christians in the state have spent a majority of their time trying to pass laws that tie the state to their religion. This brings up another characteristic missing from the description of Jesus found in the Bible, a reliance on force. While the self-proclaimed Christians in the state have spent a great deal of time trying to legislate morality Jesus is never mentioned using the state’s gun to force his teaching onto people. Once again if we ask “What would Jesus do?” we cannot urge Christians to participate in the state. If one wants to instill Christian morality into a population in a manner consistent with the methods of Jesus he or she should work to help those in need while advocating Christian morality to those who are willing to listen.

The article closes with a discussion about the “winning” strategy:

The aforementioned counseling principle also suggests the obvious first step to winning the battle to restore Americanism: Before we can expect consistent wins at the ballot box, we must win the battle in the minds of our friends and neighbors. Before we can win elections, we must win the electorate. We win the electorate by educating them about both what built up America and what is tearing down America, not by giving up or ignoring the problem.

The essential foundational victory will not be won in Washington or in our state capitals. It must be won first among our friends and neighbors in our houses, schools, churches, and towns. And remember, what we are “for” always has to be more important than what we are “against.” Our approach must always include the hillside view.

What’s interesting about the closing part of the article is that it is correct in stating that the key to victory for Christians is to work directly with other people. Where it falls flat is then claiming that working directly with other people will lead to the end goal of political victories. What need is there for political victories if one succeeds in the job of education? If people are working together to house the homeless, feed the hungry, and cure the sick why does one need the state to get involved in those matters? If people are following Christian morality why does one need the state to force it onto people? The only thing involving the state manages to do is redistribute a great deal of resources from the general population to agents of the state. On top of being a waste of resources the state is also subject to violent mood swings. For a time it may be working on forcing Christian morality only to change and begin persecuting Christians. The state, being violent by nature, knows no moral philosophy other than redistributing wealth from a populace to the politically connected.

Both houses of Congress have voted in favor of the fiscal cliff deal. Many people, especially those who identify as conservatives, are in an uproar after it was announced that the House Republicans caved on the matter. For those who have been paying attention the deal involves both tax and spending increases. This may appear odd to people since the inclusion of both tax and spending increases seems to oppose to goal of stopping this country from falling off of the fiscal cliff. For those who understand the nature of the state this outcome was all but guaranteed. In order to understand the fiscal cliff deal one must first understand the function of the state.

People are raised to believe that the purpose of the state involves defending the people from foreign and domestic threats, building and maintaining infrastructure, caring for those who have nowhere else to turn, etc. As an anarchist I see the state differently. The true purpose of the state is to redistribute wealth from the general populace to the politically well-connected. Every supposed purpose of the state I listed is really a thinly veiled cover for wealth redistribution.

The true purpose of police officers is to act as direct state expropriators. Notice that a majority of offenses one can be punished for involve no victims. Speeding tickets, parking tickets, fines for possessing verboten drugs, etc. are victimless crimes that involve the payment of money from offenders to the state. Even the prison system is nothing more than a special form of subsidy in the form of slave labor. Federal prisoners are generally “employed” by Federal Prison Industries, more commonly known as UNICOR. UNICOR is a government owned corporation that produces goods and services for the federal government. All federal agencies, with the exception of the Department of Defense, are legally required to source all needed goods and services through UNICOR unless UNICOR is unable to provide it or gives permission to the federal agencie to seek an alternate provider. Private prisons are another form of subsidy. Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest private prison industry in the country, uses prisoners to provide goods and services to at extremely cheap prices. The police, through enforcing jailable offenses, provide both UNICOR and private companies like CCA with a source of extremely cheap labor. Both corporations enjoy a benefit over other domestic providers of goods and services since neither is obligated to follow labor laws such as paying workers a minimum wage. Effectively wealth, in the form of labor, is being transfered from prisoners to entities like UNICOR and CCA. The state’s courts have also ruled that the police are not obligate to provide protection, further invalidating any claim that their primary purpose is the defense of individuals from domestic threats.

What about the military? Isn’t the primary purpose of the military to defend the populace of a state from foreign threats? No. The primary purpose of the military is to expand the realm in which the state can expropriate from. Consider the Mexican-American War, which broke out when the United States annexed Texas. Even though the war was justified by the claim that Texas needed to be protected after annexation the results of the war demonstrate the true purpose. By the conclusion of the war the United States claimed ownership over previously held Mexican territories including New Mexico and California, which was a stated goal of then President James Polk. The Spanish-American War was another example of early American expansionism. During the Cuban Revolution the United States sent it’s battleship Maine to Havana Harbor under the guise of protecting American interests. After arriving in Havana Harbor the Maine sank after a mysterious explosion. Even though a board of inquiry was unable to determine the cause of the explosions it was blamed on Spain and used to justify the Spanish-American War. By the end of the war the United States held temporary control over Cuba and permanent control over Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. Today’s wars are no different. Under the guise of fighting terrorism the United States occupies a great deal of the Middle East, which has vast oil deposits. In addition to oil Afghanistan holds a great deal of lithium. Beyond natural resources the United States also hands out contracts to politically connect security and construction companies. The former is claimed to be necessary to protect people in the war-torn regions, even though the contractors have continuously harmed the people of those regions [PDF], and the former is claimed to be necessary to rebuild the countries after the initial invasions. Whether through expansion of territory, and thus an increase of tax victims, or through transfers of wealth from foreigners to domestic individuals and organizations the military exists primarily to expropriate wealth.

Infrastructure is another form of wealth redistribution. By claiming jurisdiction over the construction and maintenance of roads, power lines, water pipes, etc. the state grants itself the power to grant monopolies to entities involved in those respective utilities. Furthermore the cost of constructing and maintaining infrastructure can be socialized. Consider the power grid. If somebody wanted to provide power they would also be required to provide a mechanism to transfer power from their power production facilities to their customers. This means individual power companies would be required to not only build and maintain power production facilities but also build and maintain transference infrastructure such as power lines. In locations where the state lays claim over building and maintaining power lines they transfer associated costs from power providers to the general populace. Furthermore by claiming authority over power lines the state is able to protect politically connect power providers from competition. When the only allowed way to transfer power from a power production facility to customers is through state controlled power lines free competition cannot exist. Only power providers granted permission by the state to use the power lines are able to provide customers with electricity.

Roads and highways are yet another form of subsidy. What good is a business if either customers are unable to to get to the business’s location or the business is unable to deliver goods and services from its location to customers’? If the state didn’t build and maintain road infrastructure the costs would likely fall upon businesses as they have a vested interest in connecting their locations to the locations of their customers. Since businesses want to reduce costs they would likely find more innovative methods of connecting their locations to their customers’ locations. Easy methods of reducing connection costs may range from simply building their businesses closer to residential neighborhoods to constructing of more efficient delivery methods. During the early years of the United States the transportation method built and maintained by private entities was rail [PDF]. By granting the state power over the construction and maintenance of transportation infrastructure the involved costs were socialized over the general populace. Another beneficial side-effect of granting transportation infrastructure authority to the state, at least for the politically connected, was protection from competition. When the state claimed authority over transportation infrastructure it also claimed authority over regulating what can be transported on that infrastructure. Many goods restricted from being transfered on roads and highways must be produced locally and those local producers enjoy protection from distant competitors. In the end the state’s claim in the realm of building and maintaining infrastructure is another redistribution of wealth, primarily from the general populace to private businesses.

What about caring for those who have nowhere else to turn? Surly that is one rightful duty of a state. How could redistribution occur under the guise of helping the sick or poor? Unfortunately the history of state welfare is a history of expropriation. Consider the voluntary mechanisms employed by societies to care for the sick and poor when the state is uninvolved in welfare. Before the United States government entered the welfare market the sick and poor were primarily cared for through charity and mutual aid. People, realizing the benefits of helping those in need, found efficient and effective methods of providing education, healthcare, and other desired services to those without means of obtaining them otherwise. Around the turn of the century the state created the American Medical Association (AMA) and demanded all medical schools be certified by the association. The AMA, being run by doctors, had a vested interest in creating an artificial shortage in the number of doctors. If there are less doctors the prices that can be asked by current doctors increases. By 1918 the number of medical schools dropped 51 percent from it’s highest point in 1904. This drop is attributable to the the AMA ruling so many medical schools as being insufficient to train medical personell. Wealth was expropriated by the state from the general populace to approved doctors by reducing competition in the medical field. From those apparently innocuous beginnings the state has continued to increase its power in the welfare market. The Affordable Care Act redistributes wealth from the general populace to health insurance companies by mandating every American buy health insurance. Since increased health coverage doesn’t increase health care nothing is improved in the overall healthcare market, wealth was merely redistributed from the general populace to health insurance companies.

Knowing this the fiscal cliff deal makes sense. While the state hid the fiscal cliff deal under the guise of saving an already weakened economy the truth is far more insidious. The actual purpose of the fiscal cliff deal was to increase the state’s rate of expropriation in a manner that ensured compliance from the general populace. If the state merely raised taxes the people would be less likely to comply. On the other hand if the state raises taxes after getting the general populace to believe the alternative would be much worse people are more likely to comply. It’s similar to plea deals offered to individuals accused of criminal offenses. Usually the accused is offered a far more lenient sentence if they forgo a jury trial by admitting guilt. For example, instead of paying a $10,000 fine and spending 10 years in prison the accused is offered a $5,000 fine and 2 years in prison followed by 3 years of parole. This offer is very appealing to somebody facing the state’s capacity for violence and they are apt to accept it whether they were guilty of the misdeed or not. Such a deal is also desirable to the state as they forgo the expensive of a court battle. Court battles not only require the state to pay lawyers and collect evidence, they also tie up the court, which would be more productively used threatening another accused individual. During this fiscal cliff fiasco we’ve been told that the alternative to any deal would be a completely destroyed economy. A completely destroyed economy, according to the state, would lead to another Great Depression. Since the people believe the alternative to the fiscal cliff deal, which includes tax increases, is starvation they are more willing to comply with the increased rate of expropriation. In the end, just like a plea deal, the fiscal cliff theatre allows the state to expropriate more wealth with less work since the populace is more apt to comply and the need for direct state force is reduced.

Blame for the fiscal cliff deal is being thrown everywhere. Self-described fiscal conservatives are blaming the Republicans for caving instead of demanding spending cuts. Blaming the Republicans or Democrats for the fiscal cliff deal fails to address the root of the problem, which is the state itself. The fiscal cliff deal, that is to say the redistribution of wealth through increased taxation and spending, is the entire purpose of the state. Both Republicans and Democrats are agents of the state and therefore have a vested interest in increasing state expropriation. With a proper understanding of the state this outcome was easily predicted. In fact the only way one could believe any actual fight was occurring between the Republicans and Democrats over this deal are those who don’t fully understand the nature and purpose of the state.