When it comes to alliances in the fight for liberty, I am not one who subscribes to the "Politics makes strange bedfellows" way of thought. I often butt heads with my fellow libertarians on this issue when fiscal-sanity/smaller government "alliances" are proposed with groups like the Glenn Beck 9/12ers, The Constitution Party, Republican Tea Partyists, Meetup.com groups like the Texas Liberty Campaign, and yes, to some extent, The Campaign for Liberty, aka Ron Paul Republicans.
Why? All of the above groups(some CFLers) seem to insist upon injecting their Christian beliefs into the fight-for-liberty equation. Case in point: this meetup posted by the Texas Liberty Campaign. In what universe does Christianity have ANYTHING to do with responsible fiscal policy and limiting the size and scope of the federal government?
"But why not ally with these groups in order to win the battle for fiscal sanity and smaller government? Strength in numbers, you know."
Simple. I do not want to trade one form of tyranny for another, i.e. Big Government for Big Theocracy.
"Well, aren't you injecting your atheism into the same equation?."
No. Take the inane meetup linked to above. Did you see the text of the signs being proposed for the "liberty sign wave"? Here they are:
Side 1:Be Free in Christ
Side 2:Christian Libertarian (or Christian Constitutionalist) ETC
Side 1: I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war.
(Psalm 120:7)
Side 2: Jesus Christ: Prince of Peace
Side 1: No King but King Jesus
Side 2: Resistance to Tyranny=Obedience to God (Debbie's personal favorite!)
Side 1 and Side 2: Fish swimming against the tide/school of fish image
Side 1: It was for freedom (Galatians 5:1)
Side 2: that Christ set us free
My desired ommission of the Christian nonsense proposed above is NOT "injecting my atheism". Read up on the burden of proof fallacy if that's what you were thinking.
Now, if this were MY "Celebrate Freedom Sign Wave", I'd at least keep it honest. You'd never see something like "Freedom From Religion", "The Bible is Bullshit", or other non-fiscal policy/smaller government sayings on the flip side of my liberty signs. THAT would be injecting atheism into the equation.
Again, what the hell does any of the above Xtian signage have to do with liberty?!? (I especially love the contradictory "Resistance to Tyranny=Obedience to God" proposed sign.) Yeah, I know, the meetup specifies that it wants to "Spread the Liberty Message to Christians..", but it's doing this at the "Celebrate Freedom Sign Wave"! And to boot, this meetup is posted on a religion-neutral sounding meetup called "Texas Liberty Campaign"! How in the name of Jeebus can you possibly "Celebrate Freedom" in one breathe then brag about "Obedience to your imaginary master" in the next?
Anyway, I believe all of these pseudo-libertarian groups don't give a crap about true liberty. Their ultimate goal is a Christian Theocracy, and as I said earlier, I will not ally myself with people trading one form of tyranny for another. I will not exhaust my energies in the battle for fiscal liberty, only upon victory to have to fight again for social liberty.
So to all of the above groups, stop calling yourselves "libertarian", you are nothing but refried neo-conservative sore-losers. Leave your religilous idiocy out of the fiscal sanity/smaller government equation, and I'll be happy to chat with you about alliances.
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Image from here.
10 comments:
Absolutely right. I get tired of having this discussion over and over again. Freedom is just freedom. My kind of freedom would have room for religious folks to hold whatever belief they want; but their brand of "freedom" would base "laws" on their particular flavor of "morality" and punish me if I don't agree.... which I don't.
Then I get told that "atheism is just another religion". If that is the case, then "health" is just another disease.
"Amen" to that, Kent.
I cannot speak for all Christian libertarians, but I believe that you might find that when it comes to the fight for liberty we share a lot in common.
Christian libertarians have a very similar problem with their fellow Christians that atheist libertarians have with their fellow atheists. There is an overwhelming number of Christians who justify the use of force as a means to their ends on many issues, just as their are many atheists who do the same. Both are wrong to do so, but I believe it's worse when Christians do it because our instruction manual, (The Bible), doesn't teach that the use of force is a legitimate means to those ends.
The signs with Christian slogans which you mention aren't aimed at changing the ideology of atheists. They are aimed at showing Christians who justify government force the ere of their ways from a biblical perspective.
To too many Christians, libertarianism is incorrectly associated with libertinism and dismissed out of hand as unbiblical secular humanism. With the number of people who claim to be Christians, it is vitally important to the cause of liberty to correct their misunderstanding.
You asked, "In what universe does Christianity have ANYTHING to do with responsible fiscal policy and limiting the size and scope of the federal government?" Unfortunately, a majority of Christians in the US might ask the same question. Actually, there is a lot in the Bible which concerns just these subjects. Just to give one example, in 1 Samuel, Israel looked around and noticed that other nations had Kings, (earthly governments). So they asked God to give them one too. Here is what God told them to expect from such a King.
"This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the Lord will not answer you in that day."
Christian libertarians are a pretty small minority and we have our work cut out for us.
Peace, Bryan
Bryan, Have you actually read the Bible? It advocates initiating force all over the place.
It advocates slavery; it does explain just how much you can beat your slaves without making God mad, but it doesn't say there is anything fundamentally wrong with slavery itself. It even claims it is acceptible to sell your daughters into slavery.
It advocates genocide. There is just one abomination after another.
And the claim that "but that is the Old Testament" won't hold water, since the Bible also claims that God never changes. The attitudes he held in the Old Testament as a more primitive, bloodthirsty version, must still be the same attitudes and opinions he holds in the New Testament as Paul's verison of God. The New Testament isn't really any better either.
I'll gladly stand beside Christians in the trenches. But I won't submit to a theocracy, no matter how "free" some try to make it sound.
Hey Bryan,
First of all, thanks for stopping by and taking the time to read my rant, hope to hear from you in the future. :^)
I think you misunderstand my objection to the christian/liberty signs. I'm not accusing the sign author of trying to change the "ideology" of atheists, I'm just saying the christian message is divisive and unecessary. The message of liberty is a very powerful one and speaks for itself.
BTW, atheists do not have an "ideology", we just don't believe in supernatural imaginary friends...that's it, nothing else. Saying atheists(a word I don't even like) have an ideology is like saying people who do not believe in leprechans (aleprechanists?) have an ideology. Silly, christian apologetics in action.
The whole point of my rant against the groups I mentioned is to focus on the issues we agree on, i.e. fiscal responsibility and smaller government. Don't inject religion into the equation and I (and other libertarians) won't inject, say, our anti-drug war position.
Also, I have nothing against the concept of a Christian Libertarian, so long as that concept includes a strong seperation of church & state position. As a libertarian, I really don't give a flip what, how, or if people worship, just as long as their actions do not infringe on the liberties of others (i.e. legislating christian morality).
Anyway, all libertarians, christian or not, have an uphill battle on our hands because Nikita Khrushchev was right, the commies/socialists have indeed "taken us without firing a shot".
I try to look at it as a simple matter of having the right tool for the job. If I am to discuss liberty with a Christian, I must be ready to do so from a Christian perspective. Otherwise it would be like driving nails with a screwdriver. I do not believe forced theocracy is any more legitimate than forced socialism, fascism, communism or democracy. If people voluntarily choose to live that way, hey, more power to 'em, (pardon the pun), but no one has the right to initiate force toward those ends. Many of the issues which have become problematic became that way because we asked the government to intervene where they had no business to, and/or gave them power we had no right to give them or looked the other way and did nothing to stop them. What is and isn't acceptable behavior on "public" property is a perfect example. Personally, I don't believe in "public" property. The idea that the rights and responsibilities associated with ownership can be shared equally is ridiculous. Most of what we call "public" property belongs, (usually illegitimately), to "The State" which is why they get to dictate the conditions of its use. Which is why the rest of us are left to divide ourselves into groups and argue about it. The same holds true for "public" schools. We've strayed so far from liberty that we even let the government dictate our actions on private property which is "open to the public."
Government loves dividing us into groups to bicker so that they can then come in and take the power to arbitrate. The only two groups which matter when it comes to the battle over liberty are those who respect the rights of others and those who are willing to violate them and right now it seems like there are a whole lot more of them than there are of us.
Just for the record, I believe in the separation of everything and state.
Well said, Bryan, well said!
Yeah - I'm a bit with Bryan AND Browncoat on this... I think we should play nicey nicey, but not go in whole hog with the 9/12'ers out there. The deal is, there are a lot of 9/12'ers that popped up really fast. And I too don't agree with their religious integration into policy. But, I'd like to get a little face time with the right ones here and there and invite a few of them over. Most of the intelligent ones will agree that it's not the "Governments job to do 'us christians' dirty work". I put 'us christians' in quotation marks, because I think the Christ whose teachings I follow must be a different than the one that they follow. Sometimes, when I hear about the Christ they follow, he really seems like an A-hole. But I digress.
The ones that don't mimic the Pharisees of the New Testament may become interested in our party and throw their support behind us. And I promise, they'll know, up front, that like our Founders INTENDED, we believe in a separation of Church and State. With that big ol' wall that TJ told us about... So, play nice - but don't be a pushover - OR an A-hole, and we may pick up a goodly number of them.
I'll close with my favorite quote from Rev. Roger Williams, Founder of Rhode Island and Church/State-Separatist: "I observe the great and wonderful mistake, both our own and our fathers, as to the civil powers of this world, acting in spiritual matters. I have read ... the last will and testament of the Lord Jesus over many times, and yet I cannot find by one tittle of that testament that if He had been pleased to have accepted of a temporal crown and government that ever He would have put forth the least finger of temporal or civil power in the matters of His spiritual affairs and Kingdom.
Hence must it lamentably be against the testimony of Christ Jesus for the civil state to impose upon the souls of the people a religion, a worship, a ministry, oaths (in religious and civil affairs), tithes, times, days, marryings, and buryings in holy ground..."
By the way, I love the story of the Scorpion and the Frog and I understand how it's applicable and do take that under consideration when dealing with scorpions.
I like the way you think. I also consider myself a Libertarian, I am also fed up with christians and their cult, I have become a Wiccan and I am a Browncoat.
we are forming a group on MS The Independent Party or it may be found as it is new as
http://groups.myspace.com/independentpartybrowncoats
You are more than welcome and invited.
Michael
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