Bojidar has replied to my reply here. After reading over his latest, I want to say just three quick things before hitting the road. For any number of reasons, I see no real future in this discussion. All I want my three points to do is show that if there were ever a future in this discussion, I would have plenty to say.
First, Bojidar misunderstood which article of his that I said I read. Here’s what happened. He had wished that I had plagiarized another article of his (that I have never read, down to the present), and I replied that having read this particular post of his (the critique of me), I thought I would take a pass on reading and/or lifting from what he has written elsewhere. This misreading of his had the force of negating a number of his bold thrusts at me, which is unfortunate, because they were pretty bold.
Second, in the rape scenario from Deuteronomy that Bojidar brought up, he did not answer the point I made at all. The case law there has a situation where the man is guilty of a capital crime under either scenario. You believe the woman in that situation because the fact of intercourse is granted by all the parties, but because there were no witnesses there is no basis for charging the woman with complicity. The man is guilty under both scenarios, and the woman is guilty only in one. Once this point is grasped, Bojidar’s whole point falls apart.
And third, the point is not whether biblical people should side with the victim. Of course we should. The issue is that the identity of the victim is often in dispute. That has to be determined, using biblical rules of evidence, which means it must be independently confirmed. Under Bojidar’s approach, if a man defends himself in a deserted place, and kills his assailant, then he must be tried and executed unless he can come up with witnesses to testify that he was in fact defending himself. His crime? Being waylaid in a deserted place.
Like I said, I don’t think the game here is worth the candle.
Amen
Like RHE, his grasp of logic, reading comprehension, and skill of following an argument are nonexistent. No point thowing pearls before swine.
When he describes Douglas Wilson’s heart as “highly sensitive and sentimental” I started giggling. Mr. (Dr.?) Wilson is many things, but sentimental doesn’t seem to be one of them.
Unless you are talking grand-kids, then all bets are off.
Kinda like when Ben Shapiro said in a debate, “keep in mind , I don’t care about your feelings.”
I hope I care about people’s feelings, except when I am trying to have a rational discussion with them. Then, playing the feelings card reduces me to mute homicidal fury.
Exactly. You don’t let emotional appeals trump reason/logic
Most of this back-and-forth is arguing past each other. Marinov is essentially arguing from anarcho-capitalist presuppositions which do not recognize a state’s claim to final authority on violence. Wilson assumes a cop can use force justifiably in a privileged way (that is to enforce the law) that a civilian cannot. One (or neither) is right, but everything beyond these opposing presuppositions is fruitless.
When you compare Wilson’s dialog here with Bojidar compared to his talks with Thabiti, the differences are striking.
“I thought I would take a pass on reading and/or lifting from what he has written elsewhere.” :)
Have to admit, my curiosity was piqued by these two posts by Pastor Wilson. Enough so that I took the time to “check out” the posts in question written by Mr. Marinov. I say “check out” to differentiate from actually reading them in their entirety, for which few could afford either the consternation or time. I have to say that it appears that Marinov’s writing is an example of what one can expect when you combine a large ego, poor reasoning ability, a perceived axe to grind, and diarrhea of the keyboard. Other than that, not so great.
“His crime? Being waylaid in a deserted place.” Well, like it or not, that is the precise same “crime” many rape victims are perceived to be guilty of. True too of many people caught up in police shootings. “And third, the point is not whether biblical people should side with the victim. Of course we should. The issue is that the identity of the victim is often in dispute” And there lies the problem. Whether someone gets themselves shot or raped, there is often an automatic assumption of guilt placed on the victim, based primarily on race (or gender.) The… Read more »
You do realise that the handcuffed woman while handcuffed kicked the cop? He kicked her in response to her kicking him.
Now perhaps unwise of him, and maybe he is too aggressive at other times. But really? Jail time? In response to assault?
Bethyada, he got ten years suspended for assault. Guilty in a court of law! I don’t care what that woman was doing, you don’t kick a restrained woman in the head.
And this is the problem,even when the man is found guilty, your empathy lies with him, not with the victim. As Wilson himself said, “The issue is that the identity of the victim is often in dispute.” Biblical, legal, justified or not, that is often what it feels like to be a victim within a system of injustice.
I am prepared to accept that his behaviour was unnecessary, there is often more to a situation than what is known. Perhaps he had a history of abusive actions as a cop. Perhaps the arrest was unjustified and he had been hitting her before she kicked him. I do know however that most people arrested in handcuffs are not trying to take a last swing or kick at the cop who arrested them. That is just foolish and lacks self-control. That he got 10 years doesn’t really help you defend the case to me. That just sounds like the typical… Read more »
Bethyada, my point being that Wilson said, we shouldn’t judge until all the facts are in. While that may be technically true, the truth is we all judge. So without even knowing the facts, society as a whole will judge both a rape victim and somebody abused by the cops as guilty in some way. Even after a conviction in a court, even after all the facts are in, we are still looking to assign blame to the victim. Here you are perceiving this convicted cop with empathy, with understanding, as if he is the victim of people’s over reaction.… Read more »
You are wrong that I am particularly empathetic to the cop (other than what I view as a ridiculous sentence), he lacked self-control as well.
I am saying that I was empathetic to the woman before I found out that she kicked the cop while handcuffed.
Presumed innocent until proven guilty. This is why we have forensics. After an investigation the investigators can be witnesses to the crime. There is no other way to do this fairly. Unless you prefer mob rule?
I do not prefer mob rule. However, mob rule is the direction we are heading and part of the reason for that is the sense of injustice we are creating in people. So, you address the injustice,you cool the fire.
Agreed, you must address the injustice and then address the sense of injustice, they are not always the same thing
True, injustice and a sense of injustice are not always the same thing. But we have to be willing to look at people’s sense of injustice and address it.
Only if we have an agreed definition of justice or can arrive at one. Otherwise it goes nowhere
The majority of comments on this guy’s article seem to be calling him out for mistaking which article you meant. Not sure he has a sympathetic audience.
He admits in the comments he misread Doug. I think it best in this situation to update the article, or strikethrough of all the statements in the article that say this.
Bojidar Marinov [It is my] theological conviction, of a principled position supported by Scriptural and historical evidence… that police is a pagan invention and shouldn’t exist at all as a professional standing army, according to the Law of God
Even if that were true, biblically we are to obey the authorities unless they ask to to disobey a higher authority.
Further, we know that an army is justified biblically. I think a case can be made for the police being a kind of domestic army.
I have read a little more of his stuff, and it seems to be geared to an idea of America in which everyone is living on the Ponderosa. He does not believe the state has any right to make traffic laws. He believes roads should be private. Has he seen video footage of Los Angeles at rush hour? How does he think a couple of million drivers a day could negotiate a freeway interchange without rules? It is this kind of nonsense that makes everything else he says seem ridiculous.
I don’t particularly mind people putting forward such proposals (not that I agree with him here); I am open to discussing a wide variety of ideas. So I don’t mind bizarre views. I have a cousin who doesn’t think men have been to the moon. And I have plenty of libertarian sympathies. From my reading thus far: he comes across as arrogant and unteachable; he misinterprets others (and doesn’t write corrections when he acknowledges this); he misinterprets the Bible in borderline ways.* For example: Deut 22 says “But if in the open country a man meets a young woman who… Read more »
So I have now read Bodjidar’s earlier article that he mistakenly thought Doug had read. It is like it is written by a different person. And much better than these recent 2 screeds. I still think there are some lacunae in his understanding, and I still think he is mistaken about the implications of a man seizing a woman in the field. But worth a read to get his perspective. I think that much of the dispute relates to Bodjidar’s reading of the Law. I am willing to consider the examples further but it appears that in trying to get… Read more »
Marinov is so full of nasty bile, animosity, and belligerence that it’s nearly incredible. Lots of people on here seem to think I’m not very “nice”, but that’s mainly because a lot of my views about race, perversion, marriage, the social order, etc, are the same views held by virtually all white Americans up until quite recently, and since they believe that virtually all white Americans up until quite recently were wicked, vicious, irrational, hate-filled bigots, then I’m one, too. But it’s not really because of my “personality” or how I communicate or how I treat people. I admit that… Read more »
I think we have lost sight of the fact that men and women often communicate differently. It is foolish to come on a male-dominated board and complain that men are rough around the edges. Men kid each other and point out each other’s flaws in a way that is incomprehensible to women. Or, at least, they used to. There is a difference between belligerence and forcefulness.
Even Nicodemus got it right, “Does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he is doing?” (John 7:51). Go read it in context. You read on and Jesus uses the legal principles (in these posts) for establishing truth both about the adulterous woman and Himself as the Christ.
As I’ve said before, I am in law enforcement, being that I am a probation officer. Truth be told, there is less police brutality today than in generations past. But there is also more attention about it today, with all of the media coverage. I’d like to make a couple of observations. In the past, when a youth vandalized property or shoplifted and was caught, a police officer often administered a little summary justice on the spot and gave the kid a warning about next time would lead to formal charges. I’ve read countless testimonies of grown men who benefited… Read more »
Doug, I really love reading your material, but part of the reason for Bojidar’s dismissal of you was your nearly total lack of understanding his position. The poster called Eagle_Eyed pointed this out to you. Admittedly, he did misunderstand your article. But how can you expect him to give a reasonable response when you so fundamentally misunderstand him. He is arguing from a theonomic perspective that does not give validity or credence to state sanctioned police. Violence between two individuals must be settled in a neutral fashion, and not give an unfair hand to one party. It is that simple.… Read more »
It’s a good point. The problem is that it seems Bojidar is trying to ignore reality. The reality is we do have cops, and they are in a position of sometimes unmerited authority. Now what? His position is difficult because if we just say, “Okay, no more cops…” then we head towards anarchy. Not because there are no cops, but because the people of this country are all over the place with regards to morals and ethics. The other aspect he seems to be ignoring is that the situation has spun out of control to the point where there really… Read more »
You have made the same error as Doug. You do not seem to understand Bojidar’s position. He is a theonomist, as am I. Cops are simply not given “unmerited authority” in scripture. He is not reflexively against cops, he is reflexively against aggressive authority that is not rooted in scripture. It is simply unauthorized authority. Statists do not have the right to use aggression against what they deem to be their subjects simply because they feel like it or because 51% of the people want them to.
It is possible we are talking past each other on this. I also found in study that cops did not exist in the OT law. I also agree that statists don’t have the right to use aggression. Yet, here we are. My issue with Bojidar is not his position that cops were non-existant in OT law and therefore have no authority here. My issue is so what? When it comes down to it, we should have a king, leaders of tens and hundreds and thousands. We should be doing a lot of things, but theoretical posturing doesn’t solve any problems.… Read more »
Leaving aside “theonomy” or anarchism or any other kookiness, I can see why one might not be entirely comfortable with “no witnesses = exoneration”. That really just makes it rational to leave no witnesses, right? This holds especially when you are talking about authority figures. Since police are granted the capability of using deadly force, it isn’t unreasonable to expect them to justify the use of it with something more than their own testimony. Otherwise, god help you if you meet an angry cop alone. On the other hand, what is someone to do then if no witnesses are available?… Read more »
Matt wrote: It all comes down to which false positives you’re willing to accept. No, it comes down to what God’s Word requires in the context of limited, fallen men trying to execute justice as ministers of His wrath. God has required that mankind should err on the side of presuming innocence rather than guilt. We are not like the ungodly who have no hope of justice outside of whatever they can get from man’s hand. Because God is in Heaven, and because He will bring all things to judgment, we don’t have to fear that anyone will escape justice… Read more »
“God has required that mankind should err on the side of presuming innocence rather than guilt.”
For which party? Someone’s getting away with murder, the only question is which someone.
Matt wrote:
Repeatedly hurling his foreign presuppositions at us doesn’t help Matt’s case. If he doesn’t believe in God, or doesn’t believe that God will judge, that’s his problem. But we rest assured that no one will “get away with” murder in the day that God brings all things to light and to judgment. Even if Matt wants to ignore the point, man is simply not the final judge of sins or of crimes.
It is you who either ignore or can’t grasp the point. You didn’t even answer the question.
I have made no claims about what happens after death, so we can leave speculations thereupon aside. In the here and now, where a productive discussion might be possible, what you have is a situation where one person killed another and now claims self defense. A claim of self defense is itself an accusation, so if you presume the shooter innocent, you are automatically presuming the shooted guilty. There’s no way around this, so actually give it some thought and justify your position.
Matt wrote: I have made no claims about what happens after death, so we can leave speculations thereupon aside. Matt continued to make the unqualified claim that someone was going to get away with murder, in spite of my earlier observation that God will bring all things to judgment. So if Matt doesn’t mean to speak about the afterlife, then he needs to do more than simply repeat himself. Civic justice, from the limited perspective of mankind, requires a presumption of innocence and a high standard of evidence, not because of Matt’s hangups, but because of what God has commanded… Read more »
We all have 24 hours in a day — Doug has 28. Or, he has 24 just like the rest of us, but for some odd reason he chooses to use his fleeting moments to go after sardines in a dirty side of the pond.
Doug, try video games — it would be a better time spent.
Pastor Wilson, while you don’t know me and may never read this comment, I would like to at least make the effort to humbly offer my two cents to this situation. Let me start by saying that I have a high level of respect for both you and Bojidar and have benefited a good deal from listening/reading what each of you has to say about God’s Word and how it applies to the issues we face today, particularly in our society. So, to be honest, it’s troubling to see the two of you at odds. Having read all of the… Read more »