The Thesis in Broader Perspective
Our analysis of Calvin's exegesis of Romans 13 will appear
irrational, even "clinical" (paranoid, "conspiracy
theory") without a brief explication of the concept of Biblical
Anarchism. Anarchism is perceived to be thoroughly unBiblical and contrary
to Christian ethics. Others will find the very idea of using the Bible as
a basis for a theoretical model in a "secular" area like
political science to be completely inapropos. Therefore we should
consider the following:
-
The
Bible as a Textbook of Political Science
-
Defining "the
Government"
-
The Political Nature of
Calvinism
-
1776:
The Libertarian Effect in American History of Calvin's Views on Romans
13
-
Re-defining
"Anarchism"
-
A Prima Facie Case for Biblical
Anarchism
|
Refuting "the State" by Defining
"the State"
|
A Prima Facie Case for Anarchism |
Is the concept of "the State" a morally legitimate concept?
To anyone who accepts Christian ethics, "the State" is
intuitively immoral. It's easy to accept Anarchism if one is a Christian,
but it takes volumes for a Professor of Political Science to justify
"the State."
- Christian ethics commands love of enemy; "the State"
claims the right to kill enemies.
- Christian ethics prohibits theft; "the State" would not
exist without theft ("taxation").
The chronicle of human history infallibly recorded in Scripture also
gives us an anarchistic history of the human race. Again, this is true at
first glance, and it takes intellectual gymnastics to overcome this
obvious perception
A. NO STATE
BEFORE THE FALL
B. NO STATE
AFTER THE FALL
C. NO STATE
AFTER THE FLOOD
D. NO STATE
UNDER MOSES
E. FAITHLESSNESS
AND THE RISE OF THE STATE
F. PROVIDENCE:
GOD "ORDAINS" EVIL
G. THE CHRIST:
ONLY LEGITIMATE KING
H. EARLY
HOME-CHURCHES vs. THE STATE
I. NO STATE IN
THE MILLENNIUM
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Defining "Government"
- The Nature of "the Government" -- Force
- Representative definitions
- Taxation
- Prison/punishment
- War vs. Criminal due process
- "anti-government?"
- trust no one
- McManus/Gow letter
- "privatize" = eschew criminal
acts
- Hodge
- Service: A "Well-Governed" Society.
1. The State: The Institutionalization of Violence
The word "government"
can be used in different ways. We can speak of "self-government."
The owner of a business imposes a form of government on his employees. In
family, school, neighborhood association, and groups of all kinds, there
is "government." But only "the
government" ("the State") claims the right to seize the
property of others, have those who resist beaten
and raped, and kill
all those who get in the way.
George Washington is reported
to have said,
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force. Like
fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. . . .
"Private" persons and businesses can only raise money by
persuasion. A business can entice a customer to exchange his money for the
goods and services produced by the business. A charity can persuade donors
to give money voluntarily. But the State raises money through force and
threats of violence
2. Representative Scholarly Definitions
Political scientists and scholars in the field of political economy
agree with George Washington. The essential feature of "the
State" is its use of force to achieve its objectives.
Ludwig von Mises, the most
influential political economist of the "Austrian" school of
economics, gives us this definition of a "State":
The state is essentially an apparatus of compulsion and coercion. The
characteristic feature of its activities is to compel people through the
application or the threat of force to behave otherwise than they would
like to behave.
Suppose I come up to you and say, "If you murder anyone I'll kill
you." I am compelling you through the application or threat of force
to behave otherwise than you might like to behave; am I a
"State?" Not necessarily; Mises continues his definition:
But not every apparatus of compulsion and coercion is called a state.
Only one which is powerful enough to maintain its existence, for some
time at least, by its own force is commonly called a state. A gang of
robbers, which because of the comparative weakness of its forces has no
prospect of successfully resisting for any length of time the forces of
another organization, is not entitled to be called a state. The state
will either smash or tolerate a gang. In the first case the gang is not
a state because its independence lasts for a short time only; in the
second case it is not a state because it does not stand on its own
might. The pogrom gangs in Imperial Russia were not a state because they
could kill and plunder only thanks to the connivance of the government.
Consider this question: under Mises' definition, and based on the
account in Genesis
14, was Abraham a "State?" It would certainly seem so.
Paul (Romans
13:1) commands us to obey "the powers that be." How does
this find expression in Genesis 14? Were there no "powers?" Was
Abraham "the powers?" Was it a more complex situation? Was
Abraham fighting "the powers" by fighting the "United
Nations Peace-keeping Force," this demonic alliance of kings? It
seems clear that in Abraham's life there was no earthly "State"
outside of himself, and this situation is acceptable in the eyes of God.
(Nevertheless, to advance our thesis, we will never call Abrahamic
Patriarchies "states." "State" will be a term reserved
for non-familial or supra-familial systems of social structure.)
"The State" is thus a group of individuals who can steal
from and kill a selected target of people without expecting any other
group to be willing or able to stop them.
The essential point of this Thesis is that God in the Bible nowhere
gives any individual or group the right to steal or kill, even if they
call themselves "the State." Being a politician does not make taxation
less theft, or war less
murder.
More definitions.
3. Taxation
When a business in the "free market" needs to raise money, it
must use persuasion to entice the voluntary support of others. By
contrast, when "the State" needs money, it takes it by force.
This taking is called "taxation." (Other forms of taking, such
as fractional reserve
banking, asset
forfeiture, and debasement
of the currency, are also used. These "revenue enhancement"
devices are, like taxation, also immoral.)
4. Prison/punishment
When the target refuses to "contribute" its money to
"the State," the target is threatened with prison. Such threats
are calculated to create "voluntary compliance."
Suppose Jones wants some extra money. He asks Smith for some money and
Smith refuses. Jones threatens to lock Smith up in the Jones Basement for
five years with a violent sociopath, who will beat and rape Smith every
day for the next five years. Smith pays up. That this form of coercion is
at the heart of the State's "criminal justice system" is seen in
this opinion from the Los Angeles Times in June of last year
(before any allegations of cooked-books or any other illegal conduct had
been made against Enron):
Here's
what California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer said at a press
conference about Enron Corp. Chairman Kenneth Lay:
"I would love to personally escort Lay to an
8-by-10 cell that he could share with a tattooed dude
who says, 'Hi, my name is Spike, honey.'"
Here's why Lockyer should
be removed from his office of public trust: First,
because as the chief law enforcement officer of the
largest state in the nation, he not only has admitted
that rape is a regular feature of the state's prison
system, but also that he considers rape a part of the
punishment he can inflict on others.
Second, because he has
publicly stated that he would like to personally arrange
the rape of a Texas businessman who has not even been
charged with any illegal behavior.
Lockyer's remarks reveal
him to be an authoritarian thug, someone wholly unsuited
to holding an office of public trust.
But his remarks do have
one positive merit: They tell us what criminal penalties
really entail.
Contrary to some
depictions of prisons as country clubs, they are violent
and terrible places.
Tom
G. Palmer,
'Hi, My Name Isn't Justice, Honey,' and Shame on Lockyer,
L.A. Times, Wednesday, June 6, 2001 || more
|
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"The State" is "a violent and terrible" idea.
5. "War" vs. Criminal Due Process
The State claims the right to kill. The State is symbolized by the
sword for this reason.
- If Smith resists the confiscation of his property, and then resists
his own imprisonment, the State will kill him.
- If Smith is not a citizen of "the State" in question, the
State will label him an "enemy combatant" and will kill him.
- Sometimes even citizens are killed as part of a "war on
drugs" or "war on terrorism."
Ted
Rall Online - "George W. Bush, Warlord"
Osama bin Laden was accused of conspiring to vandalize the World Trade
Center and murder its occupants. Instead of being pursued by law
enforcement agents, in accord with Constitutional procedures, the power of
"the sword" was invoked. War does not observe constitutional
limitations. Thousands of non-combatant Afghanis were killed in "the
war on terrorism."
6. Is this an "anti-government" attitude?
- a. "Trust No One" -- An American
Ethos
-
- John Adams wrote in 1772:
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free
government ought to be to trust no man living with power to
endanger the public liberty."
Should libertarians have more confidence in their government?
Thomas Jefferson, 1799:
Confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism. Free
government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is
jealousy, and not confidence, which prescribes limited
constitutions to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with
power.… In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of
confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains
of the Constitution.
James Madison warned the people of Virginia (1799):
the nation which reposes on the pillow of political confidence,
will sooner or later end its political existence in a deadly
lethargy.
Trusting government, having "confidence in government,"
is un-American.
- b. McManus/Gow
letter
-
- c. Religion as "Private" =
failure of public criticism of criminal acts by the State
-
- In the modern world, the State claims to be "neutral"
with respect to religion. "Religion" is said to be
"private." It is religion that says "Thou shalt not
steal," and so by privatizing religion, the State avoids
criticism based on its violation of Divine Law. Requiring the State
to be "under God" is derided as "imposing religion on
others," or violating a mythical "separation of church and
state." Criticizing the State based on religion is
(conveniently) undignified and inappropriate.
- 1. "The
Laws of Nature and of Nature's God."
- 2. The Myth of
"Private Religion"
-
- d. Hodge: Moral Revulsion
- This thesis is not rooted in hedonism or antinomianism. Our desire
to abolish the State is motivated by the fact that (to adapt the
words of Princeton professor A.A. Hodge in 1887) the State is
the most
appalling enginery for the propagation of anti-Christian and
atheistic unbelief, and of anti-social nihilistic ethics,
individual, social and political, which this sin-rent world has ever
seen.
In particular, the State engages in more theft, murder, and
kidnapping than any other group of people, including the criminals
from which the State promises to protect us. The State is, without
close competition, the greatest thief and mass murderer on the
planet. The 20th century, marked by the final destruction of
Christian localism and the rise of the secular State, has been the
century of mass death on a scale unparalleled in human history.
A.A. Hodge, Popular Lectures on Theological Themes, Phila:
Presbyterian Board of Publications, 1887, p. 280, quoted in R.J.
Rushdoony, The Messianic Character of American Education,
Nutley, NJ: The Craig Press, 1963, p. 335. Hodge was referring to
the government-run school. But all of government, as propagator of
law, is an educator. See R. Lerner, “The Supreme Court
as Republican Schoolmaster,” 1967 Sup.
Ct.
Rev.
127. Legal systems educate the masses. They set the agenda for
private citizens (see "private religion,"
above)
-
7. Service: A "Well-Governed" Society
There are several features of a well-governed society. All of them
require attitudes of service. None of them require theft, violence, or
threats of force.
- The
Education of Children
- Employment
and Vocational Training
- The Care of
the Elderly
- Care of the
Fatherless
- Care of the
Ill and Handicapped
- Freedom of
Conscience
Service
The
Nature of Government
What is the
"State"?
The State as
Criminal
Order
without Violence
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