Posts

Christians, Nations, And Their Relations

Image
Christians are having a lively debate discussing what kind of relationship they should have with the state or with the nations in which they live.  On one side you have those who claim that the only nation a Christian belongs to is their spiritu al nation, the universal church.  They minimize familial, social, and ethnic connections.  To them, nationalism of any type should be avoided because it leads to arrogance if not aggression against other nations.  To them, a Christian’s identity is made up solely by their direct relationship to God, their participation in the great commission, and their affiliation with the church.  They say that they have more in common with another Christian who lives on the other side of the world than their next door neighbor who does not believe. On the other side are those who call for Christians to enact laws in the land of their birth and enforce them strictly.  They support political leaders who are willing to coerce nonbelievers into living according
2 comments
Read more

The Ethics Of Liberty - State Relationships Internal & External

Image
  The Ethics Of Liberty by Murray Rothbard Citizens' Relationship To The State In previous chapters Rothbard wrote about the illegitimacy of the state and inconsistencies found in the narratives supporting its existence.  However, the fact remains that states exist and will for the foreseeable future.  The next two chapters focus on how those ruled by the state should act and how states should interact with one another. To start, the state exists on the basis of aggression.  Not only does it set up a monopoly on the use of violence, placing limits on the natural right of self defense, it funds itself by taking money from the citizenry by force (i.e. taxation).  Therefore, as an illegitimate organization, individuals have no obligation to obey it.  In fact taking over government owned property, refusing to pay taxes, and lying to the state can be morally justified if you aren't committing a property crime against another private citizen.  Everything they own has been taken by f
Post a Comment
Read more

The Ethics Of Liberty - The Internal Contradictions Of The State

Image
  The Ethics Of Liberty by Murray Rothbard The state can only exist if people believe it is legitimate.  In order to construct such faith, intellectuals associated with the state concoct philosophies and narratives to teach the public.  There are a variety of narratives, but they all revolve around a couple of basic ideas.  The first is that government is necessary to protect people's rights.  It is simply inevitable as a part of human nature.  The second is that people themselves created the government for their own benefit, based on unanimous or very close to unanimous agreement.  Society as a whole gave the prerogative to use protective violence over to one organization and only one organization.  The third idea within these narratives is that because protecting people is its core function, the state can be trusted to carry out that function. However once you dig a little deeper , you will expose logical inconsistencies in those narratives.  I don't know if I would say that
Post a Comment
Read more