Government and Tyranny

A cyber-friend who goes by the handle of One Salient Oversight has done me the kindness of answering one of my posts here in the comments section of that post. Since he is quite possibly my only reader at this point, and since my response to his comment became quite lengthy, I have opted to bring it out here to the front page. OSO is an Aussie, a nice guy, and a guy who knows how to disagree graciously. I hope I can return his graciousness and that we can both profit from our discussion.

OSO is a big-government liberal and our disagreement concerns the nature and purpose of government.

First let me quote him, then I'll respond.

OSO wrote: One counter-argument from the top of my head concerns sin. Sin affects both the individual and the community. To argue that the Biblical direction is more individualistic is to argue that the sins of the many outweigh the sins of the few (in a per capita sense). I would argue that sin affects both equally.

That's not my argument. My argument is that because of our sin nature, power tends to corrupt. I firmly believe the maxim: "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Though there are exceptions to the rule, history is replete with individuals who sought power for power's sake so that they could use it to tyrannize others. Give sinful man that much control over others and he tends to abuse it.

Think about it this way. Government is only necessary because of sin. Before sin, there was no need for the ten commandments. Man had God's law written on his heart, he obeyed willingly. When men sin government becomes necessary in order to execute justice and this is government's primary purpose.

The founders of our country believed this for they wrote about a Creator who had endowed us with certain unalienable rights and then they went on to delineate government's responsibility in protecting those rights. Government is about protecting the individual's liberty so that he may live free and be judged by God for how he lived in that final day. Every man's life is his own and he is responsible to God for how he lived it. It is imperative, therefore, that he be free to live that life as his conscience dictates and be judged by the just judge of the universe in that final day.

But, I've strayed. The point is that because of sin, men who have power tend to be corrupted by it. Governments, in reality, serve to perpetuate their own power and increase it. Governments never naturally shrink, they naturally grow.

Why is it that you think that you know better how others ought to live their lives than they do? And if you do, what gives you the right to enforce your viewpoint on them? You can, and should, seek to persuade men. You can, and should, take moral stands and proclaim truth and righteousness. But when do you get the right to enforce your viewpoint on another via the sword?

It is Charles Spurgeon who is credited with saying "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still." This is why the marriage of church and state is a great evil. It does not make Christians of men, it only makes hypocrites and increases rebellion. Men who are born of God worship him freely.

We have every right to persuade men to come to Christ. We have no right to enforce our theological viewpoint on them. By the same token, we have every right to persuade men to give to the poor, but we have no right to reach into their pocket, take their hard-earned money, and give it to someone who has not earned it. If your name is not Government, that is called robbery and will get you in jail. Why do we think a crime can be made into a virtue by majority vote?



If I have money beyond what I need for my family, money I have earned by my labor and God's grace, and God gives me opportunity to give to another who is in need, and I do so, that is a virtuous act. God is glorified in that. But if I then go to my neighbor and by threat of physical violence compel him to give of his means to help someone else's need I have committed a grievous sin, a crime. But this is what socialist government does.

If I don't pay my taxes the government will put me in jail. But what does the government do with my money? It redistributes it to others. Gone is any virtue in my giving . . . because I was forced. Gone is any choice I had in where and how and to whom I should be charitable. Gone is my expendable income and any opportunity I might have to actually help others whom God might send across my path.

And what right do others have to tell me what to do with my money anyway? More to the point, what right does any given majority have to enforce its viewpoint on any particular individual on how he ought to use his money to help others? This is tyranny. It is the opposite of liberty.

Here's what the majority should do. It should seek to peaceably persuade others to commit acts of virtue freely, after having practiced those virtues themselves. Gone is the greedy, corrupt, wasteful, power-mongering middle-man called government. Intact is liberty. Intact is genuine charity. Intact is justice. Socialism destroys all three.

I have rambled on so far that I have forgotten my original point, but I think it was this: men are by nature corrupt, therefore their power over others should be very limited and very local and they should be held very accountable for their use of that power. The larger and more centralized a government is, the less it can be held accountable and under control.

Corporations Don't Pay Taxes

It's one in a long line of stupid, leftist, class warfare mantras often repeated by leftist, socialist politicians along with their leftist, socialist propagandists in the main-stream media. It usually goes something like this: "We're going to make those big corporations pay their fair share. It's about time somebody stood up to big tobacco, oil, pharmaceuticals, fill in your favorite villainous capitalistic enterprise here."



And people buy it.

My friend Tom Sawyer at The River is a lot less charitable to Democrat voters than I am. He thinks they are all stupid. While I don't agree, I have to admit that the fact that this little ploy always seems to work makes me wonder if Tom is right.

Corporations don't pay taxes.

I know, I know, I know. You point out to me that they collect and pay sales tax. Yes, they do. They also are responsible to pay a lot of other taxes in the form of fees and regulatory sanctions most of which we don't even know about.

I know.

But I'm still telling you that corporations don't pay taxes. Now, think with me for a minute.

One, corporations are not amorphous, impersonal entities. Corporations are owned by individuals. A tax on a corporation is a tax on the individuals who are shareholders in that corporation. Some of them are businessmen. Many of them are simply people who have retirement money wrapped up in mutual funds. They are teachers, doctors, factory workers, small business owners, salesmen, tradesmen, you-name-it. Average Joes. Raising taxes on a corporation is raising taxes on average Joe.

Two, a tax on a corporation doesn't just affect the shareholders, it affects the employees. Money that could have been used to give pay raises, bonuses, vacation pay, health benefits, you name it, to employees must now be diverted to the government. Hit the corporation with new taxes and you are just taking money away from the people who work for that corporation.

But number three is the real kicker. I really want you to pay attention to number three.

Three, when you tax a business, that business simply passes the tax burden on to the consumer in the form of cost increases. This is such a no-brainer I don't know why I even have to post about it. When the federal government taxes "Big Oil", "Big Oil" just raises prices at the pump and guess who has to pay those tax increases on "Big Oil"? Yep. You do.



When you voted for a Democrat so he could make "Big Oil" pay its fair share you really socked it to "Big Oil" didn't you.

Big Government Liberal?

A cyber-friend of mine posted an interesting piece on one of his blogs a few months back and since I am way out of the loop I just read it a few minutes ago. This friend is politically on the left while at the same time he has an evangelical faith. Those of you out there who are secularists might not be able to grasp that one, specifically those of you who think the term 'evangelical' is a political rather than a theological term. I'm not sure how this anomaly occurs (that of being an evangelical and a leftist) but I am almost certain it has to do with some sort of regressive genes and perhaps if our good friend Richard Dawkins were here he could explain how it might be a positive step in the evolutionary process.

(smile)

Anyway, here is what my friend One Salient Oversight wrote (I blanked out specific names of specific individuals because they were unimportant to the discussion at hand):

"I am not saying that my political stance is the way to go. One of the basic reasons of the disagreement between (...) and I is over politics. (...) is the small government is the only solution type. I am far more leftist in that regard and think largish government supported by higher taxes is a good thing. If that was all it was then I would have no problem with (...)'s politics. The problem with (...) is that he has taken on small government as being biblically taught. (...) therefore not only thinks that his political position is right, but also biblically mandated. That is where (...) and I differ. While I have leftist beliefs that I think are great there is no way I would argue that my position is biblical because neither position is backed up in scripture. Political ideology is one area that the Bible is broadly silent on and which therefore gives believers freedom to choose. (...) has taken an area of life that Christians are allowed liberty to choose in and turned it into a black/white biblical/unbiblical issue. Many of my disagreements with him have been about this very thing. I will expand this idea as I post about it."

First, let me say that I don't go to (...)'s blog, don't read what he writes at other blogs, frankly have never found him that compelling when I did read him (once upon a time), and have no desire to defend anything he has written. But what my friend OSO says in the quotation above intrigues me and I want to address some of it. Here goes:

"I am not saying that my political stance is the way to go. One of the basic reasons of the disagreement between (...) and I is over politics. (...) is the small government is the only solution type.

I, too, am a small-government-type. I don't arrive at that position by way of pragmatism, however, although I could. I arrive at it by way of principle. I believe small, decentralized government is the only way to go and that large central government is, by nature of the beast, always bad. Not that the concept is inherently bad, but that it always turns out bad due to the nature of the individuals who people it.

OSO goes on:

"I am far more leftist in that regard and think largish government supported by higher taxes is a good thing.

I find this interesting how we have almost come full circle on this left/right thing. Back in Thomas Jefferson's day he was considered a radical leftist because he championed the individual over government and thought big government was equal to tyranny. He is/was a classical liberal. Today, his position is held by no one on the American left. Modern liberals champion big government while individual liberty and Jeffersonian democracy were best represented in this last century by the Republican conservative Ronald Reagan. So in a weird twist of irony I am a classical liberal, aka conservative, while the big government conservative types of Jefferson's day find their ideology represented today on the American left.

OSO continues:

"If that was all it was then I would have no problem with (...)'s politics. The problem with (...) is that he has taken on small government as being biblically taught. (...) therefore not only thinks that his political position is right, but also biblically mandated. That is where (...) and I differ. While I have leftist beliefs that I think are great there is no way I would argue that my position is biblical because neither position is backed up in scripture. Political ideology is one area that the Bible is broadly silent on and which therefore gives believers freedom to choose. (...) has taken an area of life that Christians are allowed liberty to choose in and turned it into a black/white biblical/unbiblical issue. Many of my disagreements with him have been about this very thing."

Again, I have no desire to either learn or defend the positions of the individual cited above. But I think it is necessary to point out that I believe that a biblical world-view, consistently applied, will lead one to a position of favoring individual liberty to a large extent over big government. Government was instituted by God and some government will always be necessary. How much government is the question at stake and I do believe that my position is more theologically sound than that of One Salient Oversight. I would like the opportunity to expound upon that over time. I am sure that he will afford me that opportunity as well as give me the grace of responding thoughtfully to what I write.

And, I guess that means I am blogging again--but only sporadically.

The River - Tom Sawyer's Blog

A friend of mine, Tom Sawyer, has started a blog. He's a little rough around the edges, but I think he's right on the money when it comes to politics. He and I discuss ideology all the time. I've been trying to get him to blog for quite some time now and he finally jumped in the water. I think you will find him interesting and compelling, if not a little edgy. I forewarn you, though. He's a non-conformist and he'll argue with a fence post.

Go to The River now.



Here is his blog. I dare you to check him out.

The River

Enjoy.

What is going on with me and this blog?

The short answer: not much.

Oh, there's a lot going on with me. I am healthy, busy, and happy. Church, work, four children, three step-children (actually four, but one is grown), a beautiful wife, basketball, work, reading, basketball, and my beautiful wife (as well as all those children), have I forgotten anything? Oh, yes, finishing a house. These are all giving me plenty to do.

So blogging in post-America America, though tempting, is, hmmm, something I'm probably not going to do much of.

However . . . I do have some friends who are blogging and once these guys get a little more meat on those dry blog bones I will link them here.

Health Care for Everyone

I was listening to the Sean Hannity program the other day, something I usually do not find myself doing unless my favorite sports talk show host happens to be out and the political season is particularly interesting. Such was the case. That day Sean gave up an hour of his show to only take callers who were supporting Barack Obama for President. The reasoning behind the support being given by these individuals for the Democrat nominee ranged from naively superficial to scarily ideological. One caller in particular caught my attention with a question he threw at Sean. Because Sean did not take the time to answer the question thoroughly I decided I would use my blog to do just that. Here's the question:

"What do you have against giving people health care?"

On the surface the question seems pretty reasonable. In fact, it served a valuable purpose to the person asking it, that of implying that Sean (and all conservatives) are simply stingy by nature while he, the caller, was generous, even magnanimous. Surely only the Ebeneezer Scrooges of the world would actually be against giving people health care. The question could only have been better had the caller left out the word "people" and instead appendaged it with the all-important prepositional phrase--"to the children." But, of course, since the Left has already tried and used that tactic successfully for so long, this country already provides free health care for the children, rendering that amendment unnecessary.


The question, as it stands, however, is so flawed that I hardly know where to begin. I cannot recall what Sean said, but several things came to my mind at the time and I plan to expound upon each of them in due course. For tonight I will just give the most obvious answer, an answer which will really only serve to open up the avenues of thought for the rest of my answers which will follow.

Here's how the conversation might have gone had the caller not been a caller, but rather an acquaintance, and had the question been sincere, rather than a lame attempt at accusation or baiting--and had I been Sean.

"What do you have against giving people health care?"

"Well, nothing, per se. But in order to give something to someone, the giver must first have the gift in his possession, or at least access to it--meaning it must be paid for. There are several problems with the idea of giving people health care, the most prominent being that at the moment I cannot afford to. But even if I could, I don't know that it would be a good idea."

To borrow from an oft-used but little understood phrase, there's no such thing as free health care. As with all other goods and services, someone must pay for it and someone must provide it. When I say in the above scenario that "I cannot afford it," I'm not kidding. I have enough trouble providing for the health care of myself and my own family to be able to provide health care for anyone else. You and I know, however, that the question was not personal, but rather rhetorical.

What do you have against government-provided health care? What do you have against socialized medicine?

And my first answer remains the same. We cannot afford it.

Like spoiled children, the Democrats want it all. They scream about how Bush has given us the worst economic down-turn since the Great Depression (does no one remember the Jimmy Carter economy?), about how we are on the brink of disaster, and then, at the same time, they want to raise taxes.

How else do we pay for health care?

Lost in this discussion is the most basic principle that the government has no money. Government can neither provide goods nor services. It only purchases them and distributes them from the private sector. It takes business to produce something or provide something and therefore only business can actually produce wealth. Government cannot. Government only gets money by confiscating it from its citizens. In bad economic times the citizens do not have excess wealth to be given up. In an economic down-turn, adding new taxes is like dousing a flame with gasoline. This is what Herbert Hoover did after the stock market crash of 1929. This is what Barack Obama wants to do when elected President. Only a fool would raise anyone's taxes right now.


We cannot afford to socialize the health care industry, obviously. That's the first thing I have against "giving people health care." It costs too much.

But that only scratches the surface. Even if we could afford it, it would be the wrong thing to do. More to come.

Joe Biden - VP for our times

Obviously Sarah Palin is entirely unqualified to be just one heart-beat away from the presidency. Isn't that what Hollywood, the mainstream media, and the DNC have unanimously concluded on our behalf? Instead of this ignorant woman, ahem, we need a man of vision, a man of candor, a man who is not only experienced in leadership, but a man who can spell and do elementary math to fill that all-important position of second-in-command to the leader of the free world. Our man? Joe Biden. Check out this clip.