I contacted the Fuhrer of Texas

I just sent the following to the Governor of Texas:

Governor Perry, it is reprehensible that you have publicly commended
the actions of the CPS in terrorizing the people of the FLDS RANCH
(not "compound" -- they are not a paramilitary organization). These
actions are unconstitutional, immoral, and sinful. These people have
been denied due process of law. I am very sorry to have voted for you
because I now see that you obviously do not believe in anything that I
stand for. I am praying for power to be removed from all those who
have been responsible for this abusive government action. The right
thing for you to do is to immediately repudiate your commendation,
return these children to their parents pending the outcome of any
legal case against them, and discipline and fire the people involved
in this kidnapping.

You are out of touch with the people of your state.

Does the free market protect against tyranny?

How do you reconcile your belief in unregulated free-market capitalism as a divine protection against tyranny, with the fact that so many of the most profitable commodities in a capitalist market are the ones that appeal to our very basest and most disordered desires (drugs, p&rn, etc.)?

I wanted to comment on a misperception that I saw in this question. I don't believe in the free market as a divine protection against tyranny. It's more of a definition thing: tyranny is what you get when somebody takes away freedom. So the free market is what you get when there is no tyranny, at the moment. Freedom and tyranny are opposites.

I do believe the free market is divinely inspired, because God is the author of private property (Exodus 20). And I do believe that this free market has spectacular benefits in a lot of areas, chiefly that it satisfies the greatest value of human wants (including needs) possible in a world of scarcity. It is the only way to achieve the benefits of division of labor.

And it is the only moral way. Not having a free market means people exercising ownership rights over things that are not theirs, either by taking what is not theirs, or by telling them what they can and cannot do with it. It is to the Lord's glory that the only moral way to arrange human affairs is also the economically best way. It is to man's shame that we have so little trust in the Lord that we entertain the idea that other ways might actually outperform this one, and might therefore be worth trying. (If we have enough faith in the Lord, we will choose His way even when it looks to us like it doesn't work best, trusting that we are not seeing what He sees (I Corinthians 2)).

I have referred to a few of our institutions as protections against tyranny, but they are only partial protections. For example, democracy protects against tyranny by preventing the governing authority from taking some, but not all, actions which are offensive to the populace. Of course, democracy still allows plenty of tyranny. The people can vote to outlaw Jews, for example, or to educate each other's children. Separation of powers also helps to function as a check on tyranny, because an action is required to pass multiple checkpoints before it is put in force. However, one of the main reasons we have these imperfect safeguards is that rulers of centuries past learned that if they did not give the people some of what they were asking, the people would revolt. The rulers found they could take away much liberty, then give some back and claim that they were the source and guarantee of the rights and liberty, rather than its main oppressors. They found that they could take away much of the wealth of the people, then use it to provide some services and goods, claiming that the market would never provide these things and therefore presenting themselves as the "benefactors" of the people (Luke 22:25). As long as they gave the people enough to keep them happy, the vast majority of people would never entertain the idea that they might be better off without the rulers, and revolt would be staved off.

Since the free market makes it possible to provide for all kinds of services, it does make it possible to provide for protection against tyranny, like any other service. Just as you can today hire a security guard, even though the state tries to provide some security for you, under a truly, 100% free market, you could contract with a service to provide your security. These services would look a little bit like our governments, in that they are organizations formed to secure our rights (this is what Thomas Jefferson said was the purpose of government, in the Declaration of Independence). But unlike our governments, they would be prohibited from just assuming control over everybody in a region, potentially taking away their rights, by virtue of the fact that competing services would exist, and those services would be out securing the rights of their "citizens" against any other group that started encroaching. One of the real problems of government is that rather than allowing this need to be met on the free market, where all needs are best met (most economically), we've instead socialized this process. We know socialism is a horrible way to provide food. It's also a horrible way to provide security. Or anything else.

Freedom also helps perpetuate itself because a taste of freedom makes people discontent with tyranny. This is one reason the United States revolted against Great Britain: a century of "salutary neglect" got the colonists used to enjoying the benefits of their liberty, and they got upset when moves were made to take it away.

But the important thing is not that the free market provides some protection against tyranny. It's that if you don't have a free market, you have tyranny.

Like all the other nations

In I Samuel 8, the Israelites sinfully ask the prophet and judge Samuel to "appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations." (8:5) Under the direction of the Lord, Samuel explains to them why this desire is not only sinful, but a bad idea, but "the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel, and they said, "No, but there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations" (8:19-20) The result was disastrous in many ways, as any child with a mother can tell you that jumping off a bridge is still a bad idea even when all the other kids are doing it.

The United States was established after many years of improvement over the older model of government, monarchy. Under monarchy, a single human being ruled every citizen and had absolute power at whatever arbitrary level of detail he pleased. As we've seen, no such centralized authority can satisfy the needs of the whole society.

The United States was set up with certain restrictions on the power of its government. These may be seen in the Constitution. For example, no state was permitted to make anything but gold or silver a legal tender (and given that the Constitution strictly limits the powers of the federal government to those things explicitly included within it, and given that the Constitution permits the Congress to coin money, but not print it, the same is true of the Federal government as well. Unfortunately, while people of the early twentieth century correctly recognized that a Constitutional amendment was required in order to give the federal government the power to ban alcohol, nobody noticed when the government overstepped its bounds on this matter). The federal government was not permitted to pass laws restricting the freedom of speech, or of the press, or prohibiting the free exercise of religion. The Congress could not pass export taxes, or ex post facto laws. Titles of nobility could not be granted.

All of these restrictions on the power of the government were designed to preserve something that we can have only at the expense of the power and size of the government: freedom. Man's concept of government had evolved from the tyrannical monarch, with the power to do anything, no matter how cruel or selfish, to government as "a dangerous servant and a fearsome master" (according to George Washington). Its powers had to be sharply curtailed, or people could not be free. (And as we've seen, if people are not free, they cannot prosper.)

Unfortunately since the days of those wise but fallible men, much wisdom has been forgotten. The idea that government has any limits to its powers is out of vogue. The standard for judging what the nation is permitted to do is not the Constitution, nor any notions of morality, nor even any notions of what is best (Austrian economics has proved that what is best is for government to dissolve itself and get out of the way). Instead it is presumed that, as long as a vote is taken, the government may do anything any other "civilized" nation does.

Actually it didn't take long for people to forget (perhaps deliberately?) the limitations imposed by the Constitution. On your ten dollar bills is a man named Alexander Hamilton, who pressured the United States to establish a national bank, something not permitted. His rationale? All the other nations do it, so clearly this was something "necessary and proper" for a nation to do. He had a bunch of other schemes he wanted the government to enact as well, a philosophy called "The American System," which was really a system of mercantilism, or an early example of cronyism. (It had to be called the "American" system to distinguish it from the systems of all the other nations, upon which it was based.) You can read a bit more about The American System and find out who eventually enacted it with help from Google. By the way, Hamilton's image goes great on that ten dollar bill, which is an unconstitutional form of money specifically left out of the Constitution. And as any of the anti-Hamiltonian founding fathers could have told you, the results of Hamilton's actions is that ten dollars is worth a lot less than it used to be. (Ten dollars was originally defined as one-half of an ounce of gold. Use this link to check the current price of gold and see how much half an ounce is worth now. The gold isn't worth more; what's changed is that the dollar is worth less. All that value was plundered by the government.)

How about all the other great things that other nations do? Socialized health care? We want it. Why does it matter if the Constitution permits it or not? Compulsory education? That was based on the system Prussia had. Originally it had to be a matter for the states alone, because the federal government wasn't permitted to address it, as it was not in the Constitution. But after about two generations of state-level compulsory (socialized) education, nobody remembered why that mattered, and today we pass national education bills without ever consulting a judge or a lawyer or a literate person to see if the Constitution permits it.

In the early days of the U.S., the great desire of every man was to learn from the lessons of history and construct a government that was different from the others. Today, I'm afraid, we sound more like the Israelites. And if we don't ever ask, "Why didn't the founders include this in the Constitution, when other countries thought it was a great idea?" perhaps we, like they, deserve what we get.

Governor Rick Perry: in charge

Governor Rick Perry has issued an order to all sixth grade Texan girls to receive the Gardasil HPV vaccine. Funny, the last I checked, state governors commanded the state militias (analagous to the way the President is commander-in-chief of the military), but there was nothing about commanding schoolgirls.

Also, last time I checked, Presidents are governors not kings, and law was to be made by the legislatures. Of course, it would still be wrong, immoral, and detrimental for the legislature to issue such a law, but this principle of separation of powers should function as at least a possible check against such tyranny. Since Governor Rick Perry doesn't really possess the legal authority under our system to make law, every single argument in favor of him issuing this decree because it is "the right thing to do" and because it "needs to be done" also authorizes me to issue such a decree. I've got just as much authority to do this as he does.

Democracy, republicanism, constitutionalism, separation of powers -- none of these are liberty, but all of them came about as ways to protect liberty. Unfortunately nobody knows what liberty is anymore. Here's a hint: if you have the power to make somebody do something (other than making them leave you and yours alone), that person doesn't have liberty. When you vote, you're asserting that your society doesn't have liberty, but is instead responsible for doing whatever the vote says, tyrannical or not.

Here's another hint: if a vaccine or any other health care option is a good idea, then you won't need to issue a law (or "executive order," which is a fancy way for saying "a law issued by the king, rather than the legislature") to make people do it. They will do it on their own. The free market is infinitely more capable of making this decision than Governor Rick Perry, or any other single human being or centralized group.

Thought for the day: Romans 13:3-4 says, "For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. ... it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil." Where in here do rulers get to define what is evil and what is not? Rulers are empowered to be a terror against evil. Evil is breaking God's law. When rulers ("us", in a democracy) make law, they are deciding what is and is not evil.

Is not vaccinating your little girl for promiscuity evil?