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#NotMyPresident
Here is a great evaluation of how we deserved the president we got, at least when it comes to some of the unsavory parts of his past. When it comes to a number of his appointments, it reveals how we are getting far better than we deserved.
Who Couldn’t Use More Brians?
Oh Internet, You Never Fail to Deliver…
I don’t often use superlatives, but this was just the best….
David Ernst over at The Federalist wrote a marvelous piece outlining why Trump is the poster boy for postmodernism and describes how the postmodernist worldview produced the Trump presidency.
Follow @FDRLST
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Voddie Baucham
NSA hosted a conversation between Voddie Baucham, the CrossPolitic crew, and me. Here’s the link to listen:
Hey bad boy!
Rachel Miller.
The gift that keeps on giving?????
On the topic of Americanism and repentance, I recommend this recent article: http://thermidormag.com/america-beneath-the-asphalt/ This “American Dream” of ever increasing and unconstrained individual freedom, for which no price is too high to pay, is the heart and soul of American “civilization.” In this sense, the American dream equates to a full embodiment of what Oswald Spengler called “the Faustian prime symbol” of “limitless space.” The utter erasure and eradication of limits of any kind upon the sacred “liberty” of the individual…. This Individualism is the asphalt of the American Spirit, which like the turtles of the unmoved mover paradox, go “all… Read more »
A well stated sentiment.
This is the fallacy of Liberal Democracy. Sinful men need their sin restrained. Ultimately this only happens by God’s grace and receiving His Holy Spirit. But in the temporal sinful state, this is necessarily imposed by force and loss of liberty. It is the most loving thing to do, for the person, their family and community, and ultimately society as a whole.
Giving depraved humanity individual liberty only provides more room to sin.
Be aware that ashv doesn’t properly distinguish between natural liberties (God given) and libertine licentiousness. He seems to think that a totalitarian government is a check against the people’s wickedness, but this is not so. Governments on the path of totalitarianism (such as our own) often bargain for more power by promising greater individual license and freedom to sin. It is a bargain that serves both the unbelieving individual and the unbelieving state. However, it is not the case that preemptively restricting natural liberty (just like the abusive treatment of the body) will somehow restrain evil. Such harshness may have… Read more »
LOL
Where do you find “natural liberties” in the Bible?
The purpose of government is to uphold justice and restrain public evil, not get rid of sin. (As, normally, you would be well aware.)
Totalitarianism is the natural product of liberal democracy.
ashv wrote: Where do you find “natural liberties” in the Bible? I’ve answered this question from ashv before. I even gave several examples. One example is the freedom from having one’s life taken away without due process and conviction of a capital crime. Another is the freedom to produce wealth and control possessions. Another example is the freedom to defend oneself from harm without incurring bloodguilt. Another example is freedom from being convicted on the testimony of only one witness. These liberties are all natural, in the sense of not having to be earned. They are given graciously by God,… Read more »
Exactly. Feminism is not feminine nor is liberalism liberal. Feminism is harsh, hard edged and prone toward death and liberalism is likewise tyrannical.
One example is the freedom from having one’s life taken away without due process and conviction of a capital crime. Another is the freedom to produce wealth and control possessions. Another example is the freedom to defend oneself from harm without incurring bloodguilt. Another example is freedom from being convicted on the testimony of only one witness. These liberties are all natural, in the sense of not having to be earned. They are given graciously by God, and not dependent on the permission of others. This is eisegesis. Why should these commands be read as “natural liberties” rather than “duties… Read more »
Perhaps a different way of seeing “natural liberties” in the Scripture is to look at the Ten Commandments. Six of them are negatives, “You shall not…”. This means that we are free to do what is not forbidden.
If the Ten Commandments apply, as most Reformed think they do, to all of humanity through all time, then the liberties provided would qualify as natural liberties, no?
That seems rather strained. I doubt you’ll find anyone ready to commit to permitting everything not forbidden in the Ten Commandments.
Exactly. The command against stealing necessarily entails a personal freedom to own and control property. Since we do not have to earn such liberties, they are often called natural. Ashv is just being contrarian, but without any legs to stand on.
ashv wrote: Why should these commands be read as “natural liberties” rather than “duties of the magistrate”? They are commands given to judges and rulers. Ashv is his usual dismissive and evasive self, but he is just plain wrong in several ways. In my first example, God’s command against murder is not just to judges and rulers. Ashv is just plain wrong about that. It is a general command to all. God’s command against stealing people’s wealth applies to all, not just to greedy governments. Further, if God says “thou shalt not murder”, this necessarily entails, logically, that we all… Read more »
If you want to nitpick, yes of course the law imposes duties of obedience on everyone, not just the magistrate.
How does this help your case that things should be framed in freedom/liberty language when that’s not the language of the Bible?
ashv wrote:
I think it helps my case tremendously to simply underscore that ashv cannot admit the freedom and liberty language of the Bible.
James even refers to God’s Law as the “law of liberty”, twice. How refreshing.
How much longer will ashv try to peddle his race-aware, anti-liberty, autocratic political theory here?
“I’m not proud… or tired.”
Sinful men need their sin restrained.
Yes. As Paul says, laws are made for the lawless: understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, (1Ti 1).
But those in power are also sinners, as Lewis says somewhere. Restraint of both the people and the leaders is necessary.
Of course. But the means for restraining the sovereign are through cultural custom and the prophetic ministry of the Church. The folly of political liberalism was believing it was possible to construct a mechanism to do this — instead, attempts to do so resulted in worse oppression than anything that preceded it.
Perhaps. It is worth considering.
That said, even before modern liberalism we have the likes of Genghis Khan who manages to cause the death of millions of innocents.
Of course — but those deaths weren’t due to bad governance. I’m sure he was fantastic if you were a Mongol.
I’m not so sure he was fantastic even if you were a Mongol, but I suppose the Mongols didn’t know anything different or better. Actually the impression I have of Genghis Khan is that once the slaughter was over he wasn’t all that much worse than most other rulers of the time, and was better than some.
Still, if you’re going to speak of bad governance you ought to explain what you consider good governance.
What is good governance? Rule that is obedient to God, responsible, and stable.
That is a reasonable definition. Almost no government in history has met the first requirement, not if we mean consciously and deliberately, not even most of the ostensibly Christian rulers have done that. Certainly Genghis Khan (since we were talking about him) was not obedient to God, though he may have been working God’s will in some way. Responsible needs a little elaboration, but it works as a blanket term. Perhaps as an outworking of common grace, responsible rule is an indirect obedience to God. Finally stability – I believe you place strong emphasis on this, and in the past… Read more »
I don’t mean “morally perfect”, I just mean obedient to God in the ordinary way that every Christian is called to be in his work; seeking to conform our thoughts and actions to the gospel and its commandments.
Specifically what I mean by responsible is that those who make decisions and take actions as part of wielding power receive the benefits or consequences of them. This is why I regard liberal democracy of the British/American/French sort as untenable.
ASHV everything I have read concerning Ghingis indicated he was an equal opportunity head lopper — regardless of race, color, creed or national origin.
Conquest is not the same as misrule. (The Mongols often preferred to take tribute from cities rather than pillage them.)
ashv wrote: But the means for restraining the sovereign are through cultural custom and the prophetic ministry of the Church. The folly of political liberalism was believing it was possible to construct a mechanism to do this — instead, attempts do to so resulted in worse oppression than anything that preceded it. Ashv keeps asserting this as though it is insightful. Why does he assume that “cultural custom” can even speak without being codified in some way (such as a constitution)? Why does ashv assume that cultural custom is even authoritative to a sovereign? Why does ashv assume that “cultural… Read more »
Read de Jouvenel.
This is a non-answer. Ashv may as well have dropped another of his LOLs on us.
You write yet another book-length comment and then complain when I suggest you read a book? Give it a try, you might like it.
I didn’t complain about reading a book. That’s false. What I complained about was the evasion, and continued non-responsiveness of ashv to direct questions.
Ashv wants me to read a book, but he can’t be bothered to read a few paragraphs of mine? That’s just lame. If he can’t answer my questions, he should just say so,
By the way, the suggestion of Bertrand de Jouvenel could not be more full of irony. De Jouvenel was a charter member of the Mont Pélerin Society, which is explicitly “classical liberal”.
Yes, de Jouvenel was a liberal. But at least he thought.
ashv wrote:
Once again, ashv fails to make proper distinctions between liberalism and liberal. He wants to use both terms as a kind of epithet, but ends up lost in equivocation.
The defense of natural liberties is not the liberalism of the left, just as the guarding of feminine beauty is not the feminism of the left.
There’s certainly right-liberalism and left-liberalism. But they have more similarities than differences.
ashv seems to be simply declaring that he refuses to make the necessary distinctions. Ah well, it’s simple enough for me to cite his equivocation whenever he offers it.
Appreciate the Federalist article. Incisive at times, though really just stating the obvious in some ways. “The answer is that the postmodern man ultimately finds satisfaction in the only thing that is left for him: power. Moral superiority is an undeniable source of power over other people, and postmodernism’s moral imperative offers it cheaply to anyone who accepts its premises. The power to shut others up by merely insinuating that they are a bigot is subtle, but its potency is difficult to overstate.” And yet truth is more powerful than power. This kind of postmodern power is impotent toward those… Read more »
“Brains not Bombs”
This sounds like pro zombie propaganda.
Except it’s Brians not Bombs.
Apparently her Brian is not doing its job. I had an in-law like that once.
http://www.scotsman.com/regions/glasgow-strathclyde/scots-pensioner-who-held-up-nuclear-convoy-in-court-1-4348804
Whoa! It actually is about a Brian!
#NotMyGroundhog
The groundhog apparently made the wrong decision this year: