Category Archives: History

Gospel Effect: Nero vs. US President

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Posted by Anthony Martin on 12 January 2010 – 3:56 pm
Filed under History

So I've come to a conclusion about the difference between Nero and a US President.  Both were/are the heads of state in an imperialistic, violent regime.  Both were/are drunk with power.  I've had several people dialog with me about my position on Romans 13:1-7.  Basically, the question they ask me is why do I think we should resist our government today but Paul's original audience didn't really have to?

Some believe the study of Nero is problematic because they question the reliability of ancient sources when reporting on Nero's alleged tyrannical acts.  Let us set that issue aside for the moment and assume all of the hateful things reported were true.

In fact, let's assume it was worse for the Christians than the historical documents say.  Where the historical documents might say Nero persecuted Jewish believers, it's entirely possible some of those Jewish believers were in fact Christians.

It's true that the people who received the letters from the apostles didn't have the same situation as we do today.  Even though Nero's rule was centralized and absolute, there were other technological limitations.  An edict or ruling from Nero would take months to reach all points of his empire.  But today, there is no delay at all.  In fact, markets react before the executive orders or the legislative rulings are signed.

Although Nero had a formal centralized government at his command, each region functioned more-or-less autonomously in most matters.  On specific edicts or rulings, it took quite a bit of time for them to spread and even more time to implement.

If Nero decided to confiscate all of the gold in the Roman Empire, it would have had a rather tough time actually accomplishing it.  But we know from US History, this task was relatively easy in the United States during the FDR administration.  US Policy policies and decisions literally go coast-to-coast in an instant.

Today, the President can declare CO2 an illegal pollutant which means our very life process is in violation of the law.  Can you imagine Nero pulling something like that off?  They would have laughed him off his thrown.

I believe the US Regime is a full frontal assault intended to hinder the spread of the Gospel.  Instead of private citizens going out from the US to go along side the people of other nations and show them the truth, this government is using our resources (by taxation) to send the military to kill people and break things.

In Nero's day, the gospel permeated and flourished in spite of the Roman regime.  Yet today, the United States is still the fifth largest mission field.

The general response from a lot of Christians about why we're winding down the Gospel is that it is God's plan as read in the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation.  Sorry.  That's stupid.  God would not undermine the Gospel like that.  Go back to studying scripture.

So if biblical teachings in the United States are on the decline and God isn't behind it, which must mean mankind is.  But many Christians like to point to "end times" as the real cause.  It's that convenient?  We have a responsibility to spread the good news and then when we fail, we chalk it up to being God's will??

Or maybe there's another explanation.  Maybe we are just bad witnesses and that's all.  Christians have a higher rate of abortion, divorce, sexually transmitted diseases, and lies to cover them up.  No wonder the world laughs at us.

It's truly sad that Jesus has forgiven us.  Jesus is for losers, and we certainly excel at that point.  And we will make sure we find every possible method to prove that fact over and over.  Is there a sick and twisted way to prove Jesus should not have died for my sins?  My depraved mind will find a new example before the day is over.

The way eschatology is preached today just the current sick and twisted method pastors like at the moment.  I prefer the word, "Exit-ology" as in, "The study of how *we* Christians will exit this world before *we* make it any worse for *those* sinners."

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Richard Dawkins is Misguided

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Posted by Anthony Martin on 9 December 2009 – 9:45 am
Filed under History, Political

Believe me when I say I can take any subject and pretty much tie it back to a political argument.  It's not hard because the state has ensconced itself into every facet of life.

A friend of mine recommended that I read "The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution" by Richard Dawkins.  It seems that Dawkins' primary beef is that 40% of Americans don't buy evolution.  He explains that this is the primary purpose of writing his book.  And that's a fine reason indeed.  If you have a viewpoint you want to get across, write a book and help people understand.

But that's not why Dawkins is misguided.  You have to ask yourself, why is it so important to Dawkins that everyone accept evolution as fact?  Well, that's where I get political.  Dawkins wants science to be pure.  He wants it to be free from pseudo science.  And on that, we both agree.  But he believes that the only way to do it is to convince the general public to accept evolution.  And that's where I disagree.  Science shouldn't ever depend on a majority.

If science can only be done by consensus, there will always be conflict.  So the solution is to get away from the need for consensus.  I'm talking about general consensus, not consensus within science itself.

If you don't get away from consensus, you have to turn to indoctrination.  But it shouldn't matter if 50% + 1 of the general public accept one conclusion over another.  You can present the general public a mountain of evidence, yet they believe what they want (see OJ trial).  Science should be unfettered by general consensus.  If the evidence leads a certain place, science should follow that evidence, even if 100% - 1 person believe otherwise.

The problem is that science is funded primarily by government and coercion.  Grants come with strings attached.  But even if the strings don't affect the outcome of scientific research, a moral problem still exists.  The moral problem is that the funds were obtained by violent means.

Government should not be involved in research.  It should not do science.  There needs to be a separation of science and government, but instead there's a lobby.  Research should be funded voluntarily.  Political angles always surface.  The scientists who do the research that tends to lead to pro-state political outcomes will successfully lobby the funding while the research that leads away from pro-state outcomes will get ignored.

There will always be piles and piles of money waiting to go somewhere.  Some of it goes into war.  Some of it goes into major economic sectors.  But even what's left over for scientific research is huge.

The above is a problem even assuming there is no fraud in scientific research.  But imagine what kind of money-pit could happen if research is falsified for a time just to get at that cash-cow.  Nobody is surprised when fraud is found in the commodities industry.  If "Big Oil" or "Big Iron" is caught with its hand in the cookie-jar, it's almost expected and they get a slap on the wrist.  So why would scientific research free from the same scrutiny and suspicion?

There is another gentleman named Dan Dennett who has similar but not identical misguided ideas about education.  Dennett is a little less of a prick about it than Dawkins.  Where Dawkins would beat people over the head with scientific research, Dennett's approach would be to beat people over the head with all other religions.

Their ideas might be different, but both approaches on dealing with their ideas are identical.  They both pine over the democratic implication of ignorance.  They both want to take their appeal directly to children, bypassing the parents because they know better.

Dennett claims he wants the parents involved but then asserts that children must be taught all facts in all religion, possibly against the wishes of the parents.  I'm sure there are some parents that are totally in favor of this idea.  There are some who would rather home school their children, at great expense, to avoid it.  Dennett wants to mandate his curriculum policy even for the home schooled.

Both Dawkins and Dennett want to teach their overarching philosophies regardless of what parents value.  Check it out, and listen to their recommended tactical political policies:

While Dawkins outright attacks religion, Dennett fanes support for it:

I highly recommend you watch both of the above.  It is where education is headed whether you like it or not.  The only solution is to abolish government schools.  These nutjobs will continue to assert their dastardly policies piggybacking scientific research to get there.

By the way, I'll put anybody on the intelligent design side of the discussion into the "nutjob" category if they are trying to mandate national policies for education too.  I know they exist.  None of it is valid if the goal forced curriculum.  Both sides of the origins debate are trying to leverage public opinion and that's what I object to.

As for the true science itself, I have no objection to it.  If you want to research evolution by natural selection, do it.  Have fun.  It is certainly compelling science.  And if you want to teach a curriculum on the same, do it.  Offer your curriculum to schools that want to teach it.  But don't force it on people by offering it as a national policy.  If you have the truth, it should be self-evident.  You shouldn't need the violent apparatus of the state to get what you want.

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A Tribute to the Polish People | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty

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Posted by Anthony Martin on 30 September 2009 – 1:54 pm
Filed under History
Tagged as
This movement should create a situation in which authorities will control empty stores, but not the market; the employment of workers, but not their livelihood; the official media, but not the circulation of information; printing plants, but not the publishing movement; the mail and telephones, but not communications; and the school system, but not education.

via thefreemanonline.org

An excellent article about where we're headed in the US. Check out the whole article when you get a chance.

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Tags: Liberty

Nationalistic Recovery Administration

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Posted by Anthony Martin on 18 August 2009 – 4:05 pm
Filed under History, Political
Tagged as

You should listen to the talk by Roger W. Garrison, who spoke at this year's Mises University. One of the things he mentions is this idea of a NRA. No, not the National Rifle Association. In 1933, the NRA was a program President Franklin Roosevelt established to deal with prices (among other things) in The Great Depression, and it stood for National Recovery Administration.

This NRA symbol was later banned to prevent misuse. That shows how powerful symbolism is. The Obama version is called Recovery.gov. History just repeats itself.

Garrison talks about how the Cash for Clunkers program was supposed to last until November, 2009. Congress originally allocated $1 billion, which was supposed to last that long. But the program was more popular than they realized.

As you recall, the bill requires that the cars be destroyed. No resale, no charity, no exports to foreign nations. Not even a moment’s consideration to whether the drive-train could be used by anyone, for anything, anywhere.

Garrison mentions the fact that Roosevelt had pigs slaughtered in the fields and left to rot, in a vane attempt to bring prosperity to all.

So an interesting comparison to the wastefulness of these programs, by Garrison's estimate, Roosevelt had 24 pigs killed for every car Obama destroys, up to the $1 billion point (adjusted for inflation). Garrison made that estimate back in late July of this year, so at the time, he didn't know it was going to be extended due to popularity.

To extrapolate, I think that means when Congress spends $3 billion on the revised version of the plan, the equivalent pigs slaughtered per car will become 8 to 1. Many countries in the EU have made their Cash for Clunkers program permanent, so how long before Obama will have crushed more cars than Roosevelt slaughtered pigs?

At the end of the MU talk, Garrison shows a public service announcement made in 1933 for support of Roosevelt's National Recovery Administration, urging employers to hire. Moe Howard from the Three Stooges appears as an exterminator, whom Jimmy Durante urges to hire more men.


Source: YouTube

I also highly recommend listening to the MU talk. It was given on July 31st, 2009. Amazing stuff. Just listen and look for the parallels to today.


?The Great Depression by Roger W. Garrison
Download now or listen on posterous

MU2009_Garrison2_07-29-2009.mp3 (13318 KB)


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Tags: Economic

Momentary Socialists

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Posted by Anthony Martin on 1 December 2008 – 4:41 pm
Filed under History, Political

I know a lot of conservatives.  I am a conservative.  At least, that's how I identify myself.  And by conservative, I mean:

conservative |kənˈsərvətiv; -vəˌtiv|
adjective
holding to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change or innovation, typically in relation to politics or religion.

  • (of dress or taste) sober and conventional : a conservative suit.
  • (of an estimate) purposely low for the sake of caution : the film was not cheap—$30,000 is a conservative estimate.
  • (of surgery or medical treatment) intended to control rather than eliminate a condition, with existing tissue preserved as far as possible.
  • (Conservative) of or relating to the Conservative Party of Great Britain or a similar party in another country.

noun
a person who is averse to change and holds to traditional values and attitudes, typically in relation to politics.

  • (Conservative) a supporter or member of the Conservative Party of Great Britain or a similar party in another country.

DERIVATIVES
conservatism |kənˈsərvəˌtizəm| |kənˈsərvədɪzəm| noun
conservatively |kənˈsərvəd1vli| adverb
conservativeness |kənˈsərvədɪvn1s| noun
ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense [aiming to preserve] ): from late Latin conservativus, from conservat- 'conserved,' from the verb conservare (see conserve). Current senses date from the mid 19th century onward.


The above definition is from the New Oxford American Dictionary.  I included the entire definition just to provide a bit more perspective.  Obviously, I don't identify as a member of the Conservative Party of Great Britain, but the word does carry such meaning.  The conservatives I know in the US are quite comfortable with this definition.

Yet a great many people who identify themselves as conservative completely throw out their conservative values under certain (momentary) circumstances.  To me, this demonstrates a compromised set of principles and it seems like a form of intellectual sloth.

For example, with the so-called War on Drugs, many conservatives become socialists, after all, the term was first used by President Richard Nixon in 1971, and his choice of words was probably based on the War on Poverty, announced by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.  It is socialism because the War on Drugs uses tax dollars to regulate substances in one state while seeking funding from another.  It is the classic redistribution of wealth, the very definition of socialism.  The War on Drugs forces one state with less of a "drug problem" to pay for enforcement in another state with more of a "drug problem," for example.   So regardless of how you feel about the social problems drugs cause, the laws are enforced federally and therefore require funding on a national scale.

The War on Drugs is just one example of how many conservatives sometimes turn into what I call "momentary socialists."  No Child Left Behind is another example.  It is a conservative idea to abolish the Department of Education because a free public education amounts to welfare for the middle-class.  Like the War on Drugs, it forces one state to fund education in another state.

In both of my examples, with the War on Drugs and No Child Left Behind, funding originates by each according to ability while funding is allocated to each according to need.  If a conservative cannot recognize the previous sentence as pure unfettered socialism, I think those conservatives are very lost or have compromised principles at work.

I believe these are examples why the conservative base has lost confidence in the Republican Party.  The slow erosion into momentary socialism and compromised principles has eroded support and cost the conservative movement the election.

To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.

— Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816

When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.

— Benjamin Franklin

The above quotes and others make it clear that those who promote "redistribution of wealth" as a task for the government fly in the face against the very basic principles underlying the United States of America.  We couldn't trust the Republican Party this time around.  It's amazing they've lasted as long as they have.

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Calculation and Socialism

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Posted by Anthony Martin on 4 November 2008 – 1:34 pm
Filed under History, Political
Tagged as ,
Ludwig von Mises is one of my new heroes, but I realize he is just espousing a theory against socialism based on his own capitalistic presuppositions on the subject.  Yet it's so simple, it must be true.  This lecture will help anyone trying to understand why socialism can't work on the macroeconomic scale.

So often, those of us in favor of the free market just espouse the mantra that socialism doesn't work without an understanding of why.  As one of my father's collage professors would say, "It really isn't enough to know how, one must also know why."  When you know why, your understanding becomes more principled.  It's really simple to understand why sound money is also vital to the free market by listening to this lecture.

Calculation And Socialism by Joseph T. Salerno  
Download now or listen on posterous
12_Salerno.mp3 (13510 KB)

Source: Mises Institute Media , recorded 29 July 2008 at the Ludwig von Mises Institute; Auburn, Alabama.

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Tags: Best Of, Economic

Andrew Napolitano on Presidents Ignoring the Constitution

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Posted by Anthony Martin on 1 November 2008 – 12:35 pm
Filed under History, Political
Tagged as ,

Judge Andrew Napolitano did a great five minute editorial on Fox "News" about the role of the president and how most of them ignore the Constitution.  Frankly, they always have and they always will.  It's the legislator's job to watch-dog the president and when they don't it's the people's job to bring in the tar and feathers for all of them.  I highly recommend listening to Napolitano:



If you don't agree, you can move out of the several states, as some have suggested to me for having this view.  Now I'm interested in his book, A Nation of Sheep .

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Tags: Best Of, Rule of Law

Government's Role

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Posted by Anthony Martin on 30 September 2008 – 8:36 pm
Filed under History, Political
Tagged as ,
On the latest episode of The Sitter Downers, "Tom Gets Hitched…," Adam and Torri asked me what I think the role of government is.

Torri's question was, "Does the federal government not have a role in society at all? Should we not have laws against robbery and murder and things like that?"

Adam asked, "What powers does the federal government have, that are in accordance with the constitution?"

In a nut-shell, these amendments help express the federal "box" we have a duty to keep them in (air-holes are optional):

Ninth Amendment

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Tenth Amendment

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

To summarize these two amendments, even if the right is not explicitly expressed in the Constitution, the people still have that right (ninth amendment). And if the right is not explicit expressed in the Constitution, the federal government does not have that right (tenth amendment).

Thomas Jefferson supposedly once stated:

If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls who live under tyranny.

Even if Jefferson did not make that statement, I'm sure he would be against he idea of the FDA. This is just one example of a fundamentally and practically bad idea because its very existence suggests people should abdicate their responsibility to a group of people with a lower incentive to do their job right.

Insofar as federal agencies preventing or prosecuting robbery and murder, the several states are perfectly well equipped to deal with these things. Even now, as a function of percentage, when there is a murder, federal agents rarely get involved.

Of course, the feds step outside of this box all the time. Who's job is it to keep them in this box?

If you have thirty minutes for a complete answer from a real expert, here is an excellent explanation of The Role of Government:

The Economics Of A Free Society by Ron Paul
Download now or listen on posterous

2891 The Economics of a Free Society.mp3 (6690 KB)

If you think Bush acts like a democrat, what do you think McCain would do if he were elected? If democrats act like democrats and republicans act like democrats, doesn't that mean we actually have a one party system?

By the way, you can listen to the audio in my blog from iTunes (or on an iPod).

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Tags: Best Of, Rule of Law

Den Of Vipers

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Posted by Anthony Martin on 27 September 2008 – 5:02 pm
Filed under History
Tagged as , , ,

President Andrew Jackson said in 1836, during the banking crisis of his day:

Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time, and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out.

There are a lot of similarities in this small paragraph with our current situation.  Jackson doesn't blame speculation alone, but they do today.  He identifies the privatized profits and socialized losses.  If only Bush could have taken this approach with the Federal Reserve System.  Instead, he is a willing accomplice.  Jackson did something that was unpopular to the ten thousand families, but it was the moral thing to do.  He got rid of the central bank of his day, we must do the same in ours.

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Tags: Best Of, Economic, Political, Rule of Law