Saturday, June 20, 2009
funny but so true
Harry Browne, the former Libertarian Party candidate for president, used to say: “the government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and saying ‘You see, without me you couldn’t walk.’” That maxim is clearly illustrated by the financial industry regulatory reforms proposed this week by the Obama Administration.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Thomas Jefferson was a prophet
“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have.” - Thomas Jefferson
Monday, June 8, 2009
Pretty funny stuff
Gun Rights IdeaPosted by Stephan Kinsella at September 10, 2004 04:06 PM
A pro-gun rights attorney friend just sent me this email:
Following up on this assault weapons craziness in the news [the hysteria over the imminent expiration of the federal assault weapons ban], whaddya think of this proposed legislation I just came up with. For the safety of our law enforcement personnel (and the public at large), we should pass a common sense federal law that: (a) reduces the use of assault weapons in crime, and (b) preserves the 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.
The proposed law would REQUIRE that any person, during the commission of any federal or state crime (at least a felony), use ONLY a pistol having less than 10 rounds in each magazine, or a less lethal instrumentality.
Some sarcastic legislator should propose this, just to see what the arguments against it might be. "You can't legislate against criminals, they don't obey the law anyway". BINGO! If criminals can't be legislated against, repeal ALL gun control measures. Obligatory response: "Gasp! What are you, some kind of gun nut??!!
A pro-gun rights attorney friend just sent me this email:
Following up on this assault weapons craziness in the news [the hysteria over the imminent expiration of the federal assault weapons ban], whaddya think of this proposed legislation I just came up with. For the safety of our law enforcement personnel (and the public at large), we should pass a common sense federal law that: (a) reduces the use of assault weapons in crime, and (b) preserves the 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.
The proposed law would REQUIRE that any person, during the commission of any federal or state crime (at least a felony), use ONLY a pistol having less than 10 rounds in each magazine, or a less lethal instrumentality.
Some sarcastic legislator should propose this, just to see what the arguments against it might be. "You can't legislate against criminals, they don't obey the law anyway". BINGO! If criminals can't be legislated against, repeal ALL gun control measures. Obligatory response: "Gasp! What are you, some kind of gun nut??!!
Secession and Liberty
by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
The presidential election of 2000 showed that America is now divided into two great political classes: the productive, taxpaying class and the parasitic, live-at-others’-expense class. The latter group includes millions of welfare bums, federal, state and local government bureaucrats and "contractors," and their massive supporting propaganda apparatus in the universities, on television, and in print journalism. Now that the vast majority of what the central government does is unconstitutional, there is almost no restraint at all on the extent to which the latter class can use the coercive powers of the state to plunder the former class.
The federal system of government that was created by the founding fathers was designed explicitly to deter this outcome, but that system was overthrown in 1865. The founders understood that democracy would inevitably evolve into a system of legalized plunder unless the plundered were given numerous escape routes and constitutional protections such as the separation of powers, the Bill of Rights, election of senators by state legislators, the electoral college, no income taxation, most governmental functions performed at the state and local levels, and myriad other constitutional limitations on the powers of the central government.
The most important protection was the right of secession, which Peter Applebome of the New York Times suggests we should revive in light of the election returns. This was quite natural, for the United States were founded as the direct result of a war of secession waged against Great Britain. The very principle of the American Revolution was the right of secession against tyrannical government. The founders understood that even the threat of secession would hold would-be governmental tyrants in check.
In his 1801 First Inaugural Address one of the first things Thomas Jefferson did was to support the right of secession. "If there be any among us who wish to dissolve the Union or to change its republican form," the author of the Declaration of Independence said, "let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."
Jefferson and James Madison were the authors of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 which held that "where powers were assumed by the national government which had not been granted by the states, nullification is the rightful remedy," and that every state has a right to "nullify of its own authority all assumptions of power by others. . ." Nullification of unconstitutional federal actions was a means of effectively seceding.
The election of 1800 was a battle between Jefferson and the supporters of limited, decentralized government and the Federalist Party, which advocated a more powerful and centralized state. The Federalists were so bitter about their electoral defeat that they immediately began plotting to secede from the Union. The important point about this episode is that this secession movement, which was based in New England, was led by some of the most distinguished men of the founding generation and was never opposed on principle by Jefferson or anyone else. It was argued that secession might have been an unwise strategy, but no one denied that states enjoyed a right of secession.
The leader of the New England secessionists was Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts, who had served as George Washington’s chief of staff, his secretary of war and secretary of state, as well as a congressman and senator from Massachusetts. "The principles of our Revolution [of 1776] point to the remedy – a separation," Pickering wrote to George Cabot in 1803, for "the people of he East cannot reconcile their habits, views, and interests with those of the South and West." "The Eastern states must and will dissolve the Union and form a separate government," announced Senator James Hillhouse. Similar sentiments were expressed by such prominent New Englanders as Elbridge Gerry, John Quincy Adams, Fisher Ames, Josiah Quincy, and Joseph Story, among others.
The New England secession movement gained momentum for an entire decade, but ultimately failed at the Hartford Secession Convention of 1814. Throughout this struggle, wrote historian Edward Powell in Nullification and Secession in the United States, "the right of a state to withdraw from the Union was not disputed."
At the outbreak of the War for Southern Independence in 1861 the vast majority of Northern opinion leaders still believed that a right of secession was fundamental, and that the South should be allowed to go in peace. The abolitionist Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Daily Tribune and the preeminent journalist of his day, wrote on December 17, 1860 that "if tyranny and despotism justified the American Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861" (Howard Perkins, Northern Editorials on Secession). "Nine out of ten people of the North," Greeley wrote on February 5, 1861, "were opposed to forcing South Carolina to remain in the Union," for "the great principle embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration . . . is that governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed." Therefore, if the southern states wanted to secede, "they have a clear right to do so."
Similar statements were made by newspapers all throughout the North on the eve of the war, and are perhaps best represented by an editorial in the Kenosha, Wisconsin Democrat, which on January 11, 1861, wrote that secession is "the very germ of liberty" and declared that "the right of secession inheres to the people of every sovereign state."
"If military force is used," the Bangor Daily Union wrote on November 13, 1860, then a state can only be seen "as a subject province and can never be a co-equal member of the American union."
Most of the top military commanders in the war (on both sides) were educated at West Point, where the one course on the U.S. Constitution was taught by the Philadelphia abolitionist William Rawle, who taught from his own book, A View of the Constitution. What Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, and others were taught about secession at West Point was that to deny a state the right of secession "would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed."
Lincoln never attended West Point, but he supported secession when it served his political plans. He warmly embraced the secession of West Virginia from Virginia, for example, and was glad to permit slavery in West Virginia (and all other "border states") as long as they supported him politically. Indeed, in a July 4, 1848 speech Lincoln said, "Any people whatsoever have the right to abolish the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right." Lincoln biographers never seem to get around to quoting this particular speech.
After the war Jefferson Davis was imprisoned in the harshest of conditions but was never tried for treason, and for good reason: The federal government knew that it had no constitutional case against secession, as Charles Adams describes in his brilliant book, When in the Course of Human Events. After his release from prison Jefferson Davis wrote what would have been his legal defense of secession in the form of a two-volume book, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government.
The centralization of governmental power not only leads to the looting and plundering of the taxpaying class by the parasitic class; it also slowly destroys freedom of speech and the free exchange of ideas. One of the first things every tyrannical government does is to monopolize the educational system in order to brainwash the young and bolster its political power. As soon as Lee surrendered at Appomatox the federal government began revising history to teach that secession was illegitimate. This was all a part of Lincoln’s "revolution" which overthrew the federal system of government created by the founding fathers and put into motion the forces of centralized governmental power. Peaceful secession and nullification are the only means of returning to a system of government that respects rather than destroys individual liberty. As Frank Choderov wrote in 1952: "If for no other reason, personal pride should prompt every governor and state legislator to take a secessionist attitude; they were not elected to be lackeys of the federal bureaucracy."
November 28, 2000
by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
The presidential election of 2000 showed that America is now divided into two great political classes: the productive, taxpaying class and the parasitic, live-at-others’-expense class. The latter group includes millions of welfare bums, federal, state and local government bureaucrats and "contractors," and their massive supporting propaganda apparatus in the universities, on television, and in print journalism. Now that the vast majority of what the central government does is unconstitutional, there is almost no restraint at all on the extent to which the latter class can use the coercive powers of the state to plunder the former class.
The federal system of government that was created by the founding fathers was designed explicitly to deter this outcome, but that system was overthrown in 1865. The founders understood that democracy would inevitably evolve into a system of legalized plunder unless the plundered were given numerous escape routes and constitutional protections such as the separation of powers, the Bill of Rights, election of senators by state legislators, the electoral college, no income taxation, most governmental functions performed at the state and local levels, and myriad other constitutional limitations on the powers of the central government.
The most important protection was the right of secession, which Peter Applebome of the New York Times suggests we should revive in light of the election returns. This was quite natural, for the United States were founded as the direct result of a war of secession waged against Great Britain. The very principle of the American Revolution was the right of secession against tyrannical government. The founders understood that even the threat of secession would hold would-be governmental tyrants in check.
In his 1801 First Inaugural Address one of the first things Thomas Jefferson did was to support the right of secession. "If there be any among us who wish to dissolve the Union or to change its republican form," the author of the Declaration of Independence said, "let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."
Jefferson and James Madison were the authors of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 which held that "where powers were assumed by the national government which had not been granted by the states, nullification is the rightful remedy," and that every state has a right to "nullify of its own authority all assumptions of power by others. . ." Nullification of unconstitutional federal actions was a means of effectively seceding.
The election of 1800 was a battle between Jefferson and the supporters of limited, decentralized government and the Federalist Party, which advocated a more powerful and centralized state. The Federalists were so bitter about their electoral defeat that they immediately began plotting to secede from the Union. The important point about this episode is that this secession movement, which was based in New England, was led by some of the most distinguished men of the founding generation and was never opposed on principle by Jefferson or anyone else. It was argued that secession might have been an unwise strategy, but no one denied that states enjoyed a right of secession.
The leader of the New England secessionists was Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts, who had served as George Washington’s chief of staff, his secretary of war and secretary of state, as well as a congressman and senator from Massachusetts. "The principles of our Revolution [of 1776] point to the remedy – a separation," Pickering wrote to George Cabot in 1803, for "the people of he East cannot reconcile their habits, views, and interests with those of the South and West." "The Eastern states must and will dissolve the Union and form a separate government," announced Senator James Hillhouse. Similar sentiments were expressed by such prominent New Englanders as Elbridge Gerry, John Quincy Adams, Fisher Ames, Josiah Quincy, and Joseph Story, among others.
The New England secession movement gained momentum for an entire decade, but ultimately failed at the Hartford Secession Convention of 1814. Throughout this struggle, wrote historian Edward Powell in Nullification and Secession in the United States, "the right of a state to withdraw from the Union was not disputed."
At the outbreak of the War for Southern Independence in 1861 the vast majority of Northern opinion leaders still believed that a right of secession was fundamental, and that the South should be allowed to go in peace. The abolitionist Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Daily Tribune and the preeminent journalist of his day, wrote on December 17, 1860 that "if tyranny and despotism justified the American Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861" (Howard Perkins, Northern Editorials on Secession). "Nine out of ten people of the North," Greeley wrote on February 5, 1861, "were opposed to forcing South Carolina to remain in the Union," for "the great principle embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration . . . is that governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed." Therefore, if the southern states wanted to secede, "they have a clear right to do so."
Similar statements were made by newspapers all throughout the North on the eve of the war, and are perhaps best represented by an editorial in the Kenosha, Wisconsin Democrat, which on January 11, 1861, wrote that secession is "the very germ of liberty" and declared that "the right of secession inheres to the people of every sovereign state."
"If military force is used," the Bangor Daily Union wrote on November 13, 1860, then a state can only be seen "as a subject province and can never be a co-equal member of the American union."
Most of the top military commanders in the war (on both sides) were educated at West Point, where the one course on the U.S. Constitution was taught by the Philadelphia abolitionist William Rawle, who taught from his own book, A View of the Constitution. What Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, and others were taught about secession at West Point was that to deny a state the right of secession "would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed."
Lincoln never attended West Point, but he supported secession when it served his political plans. He warmly embraced the secession of West Virginia from Virginia, for example, and was glad to permit slavery in West Virginia (and all other "border states") as long as they supported him politically. Indeed, in a July 4, 1848 speech Lincoln said, "Any people whatsoever have the right to abolish the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right." Lincoln biographers never seem to get around to quoting this particular speech.
After the war Jefferson Davis was imprisoned in the harshest of conditions but was never tried for treason, and for good reason: The federal government knew that it had no constitutional case against secession, as Charles Adams describes in his brilliant book, When in the Course of Human Events. After his release from prison Jefferson Davis wrote what would have been his legal defense of secession in the form of a two-volume book, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government.
The centralization of governmental power not only leads to the looting and plundering of the taxpaying class by the parasitic class; it also slowly destroys freedom of speech and the free exchange of ideas. One of the first things every tyrannical government does is to monopolize the educational system in order to brainwash the young and bolster its political power. As soon as Lee surrendered at Appomatox the federal government began revising history to teach that secession was illegitimate. This was all a part of Lincoln’s "revolution" which overthrew the federal system of government created by the founding fathers and put into motion the forces of centralized governmental power. Peaceful secession and nullification are the only means of returning to a system of government that respects rather than destroys individual liberty. As Frank Choderov wrote in 1952: "If for no other reason, personal pride should prompt every governor and state legislator to take a secessionist attitude; they were not elected to be lackeys of the federal bureaucracy."
November 28, 2000
Is secession treason! Read and ask youself.
It seems to be a forgone conclusion that American society, within a short period of time, will face a complete breakdown of its consumer culture. Some think there is a strong likelihood it will be worse than that suffered by those whom historians call the "Depression survivors" and include a social restructuring or even social chaos.
Certainly, the likelihood of this occurring is enhanced by the indication that China either will not or cannot continue to finance America’s debt. Added to our concerns is the world financial market’s growing lack of confidence in the American economy which portends the ultimate collapse of the U.S. dollar.
The warnings have been numerous and the reasoning sound; so where do we go from here?
Undoubtedly the anxieties among those who are watching these events unfold are becoming manifest in their resistance to any further state usurpations and their focus on personal survival. Ah yes, we are now contemplating, individually and collectively, the very acts that every modern, massive, centralized government since William the Conqueror has sought to suppress by law.
What is often forgotten amongst the melee of "how to" articles, is the consideration of two basic questions. First: Is there a moral justification for resistance against an increasingly pernicious centralized government? Second: If the moral justification for resistance does exist can that struggle take the form of secession?
Each of these questions is answered in the negative by the power elite. Donald Livingston gives us meticulous historical reasons why the state is so adamant in its objections.
"In time, a modern state came to be seen as an association to protect the rights of individuals, and this added a stronger presumption against secession, because any right of a people to secede could only be the aggregate right of a set of individuals. But if one set could secede, any other set or subset-down to one individual – could secede. An acknowledged right of secession would mean the unraveling of the modern state."
The soft, vulnerable underbelly of the modern state being so easily exposed explains in part why the state and its supporters have had to resort to deception shrouded in religious dogma and patriotic gibberish to justify their existence. It is simply their hope of keeping the dogs of freedom at bay.
By way of illustration we need only to return to 1860 when the Southern people where hotly debating the issue of secession.
In his book, Tupelo, John Hill Aughey relates a sermon he preached, during that year, against Southern secession while at the Poplar Creek Presbyterian church of Choctaw County, Mississippi.
The nationalistic tenor of Aughey’s sermon is immediately apparent from the Scripture on which he had chosen to base his sermon, which just happened to be Romans 13:1. "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God."
Mr. Aughey begins his sermon with a feeble attempt to juxtapose the Southern talk of secession, due in large part to the May 1860 Morrill Tariff, which would raise the average tariff from about 15% to 37%, with Israel’s "idolatry" and rebellion against Judah after the death of King Solomon.
The pastor then goes on to declare: "if we, as the ten tribes, resist the ordinance of God, (meaning, of course, the accepted dogma of Romans 13:1) we will perish. At this time many are advocating the course of the ten tribes. Secession is a word of frequent occurrence. It is openly advocated by many. Nullification and rebellion, secession and treason, are convertible terms, and no good citizen will mention them with approval."
Furthermore Aughey accents his nationalism with these words: "Where do we obtain the right of secession? Clearly not from the word of God, which enjoins obedience to all that are in authority, to whom we must be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience's sake."
As if on cue pastor Aughey calls on his congregation to find the right of state secession in the Constitution of the United States and continues his remarks with this remarkable statement.
"Henry Clay, the great statesman, Daniel Webster, the expounder of the constitution, General Jackson, George Washington, and a mighty host, whose names would fill a volume, regarded secession as treason." (Emphasis mine)
It is unquestionably true that those named would regard secession as treason. However, the good pastor conveniently neglected to mention that each, save one, owed their fortunes to those who had committed acts of secession (treason), which during the late 18th century were justified by economic and social conditions far less odious than those being faced by the Southern States in 1860.
Aughey’s sermon goes on for several more pages. However, the point is that while the sermon is expressed in 19th century words, it contains 21st century progressive sentiments. Sentiments that now espouse blind obedience to an even more abusive Federal government.
Pastor Aughey’s problem continues when he calls upon Romans 13:1 to stand as an injunction against secession.
However, the passages in the Bible as well as secular history, which are contrary to Pastor Aughey’s moral contention, are almost legion. Starting with Genesis 10 and the tower of Babel, the Psalms declaring God’s enmity with rulers and the state, Samuel’s proclaiming those who wish to rule are no better than "weeds" (Judges 9:7–15), Jesus’ own actions concerning state authority, the acts of the Apostles in disobeying Roman authority, and the Christian community through the first three centuries all tell a different story.
The problem resides in the awareness, or lack of it, concerning the history and etymology of the word "powers."
In a work entitled "The Higher Right to Choose" Brother Gregory Williams makes an incisive observation concerning the word "powers" used in Romans 13:1.
"The word is exousia and it is from two Greek words. Ex means 'of' or 'from', while ousia is ‘what one has, i.e. property, possessions, estate…’"
Even a cursory check of a Greek dictionary reveals that "exousia" has as its primary meaning: "noun feminine; power of choice, liberty of doing as one pleases."
Furthermore that is exactly how those notable thinkers of antiquity, Plato and Aristotle used the word "exousia." The Greek Glossary of Aristotelian Terms affirms that "exousia" means "a right."
Aristotle not only uses exousia as a right but further qualifies the word when he says: "The right (exousia) to do anything one wishes leaves [the political community] defenseless..."
However, Brother Gregory Williams has another shoe to drop when he writes:
"In Bryn Mawr's Classical Review we see, ‘Brancacci notices that the term used by Enomaos to refer to human freedom is not the typical Cynic one (eleutheria), but exousia, which expresses the new concept of freedom in opposition to the already defunct and unhelpful eleutheria’."
"It seems clear that Paul is telling us that we should be subject to the liberty and right to choose endowed by God. Paul understood the perfect law of liberty, to oppose liberty is to oppose the will of God for men."
This is an ugly breach in the state’s longstanding bastion of Biblical legitimacy and government’s opposition to individual freedoms. For the world of classical antiquity would have read Romans 13:1 as; "Let every soul be subject to the higher liberty. For there is no liberty except from God, and the liberties that exist are appointed by God."
So why did such an eminent scholar, who was fluent in Greek, as St. Jerome, when writing the Vulgate, use the Latin word "potestatibus;" (power, rule, force; strength, ability; chance, or opportunity) instead of the Latin "licentia" (freedom, liberty, license, leave, authorization) in Romans 13?
Jerome certainly knew that the Greek "exousia" meant liberty and freedom since in 1 Corinthians 8:9; he properly renders "exousia" as "licentia."
The answer resides in the times (360 to 420 AD) in which Jerome lived and translated the New Testament from Greek into Latin.
Gibbon’s reminds us that:
"Constantine and his successors could not easily persuade themselves that they had forfeited, by their conversion, any branch of the Imperial prerogatives, or that they were incapable of giving laws to a religion which they had protected and embraced. The emperors still continued to exercise a supreme jurisdiction over the A.D. 312–438 ecclesiastical order; and the sixteenth book of the Theodosian code represents, under a variety of titles, the authority which they assumed in the government of the Catholic Church."
On Friday, February 28, 380 AD and five years before Jerome begins his work on Epistles of St. Paul the Emperors Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius Augustuses issued an edict which commanded the people of Constantinople and the Roman Empire to embrace the name of Catholic Christians. Then added to those who didn’t, "whom We adjudge demented and insane, shall sustain the infamy of heretical dogmas, their meeting places shall not receive the name of churches, and they shall be smitten first by divine vengeance and secondly by the retribution of Our own initiative, which We shall assume in accordance with the divine judgment."
From then on what the Church would consider heresy was not only a sin against God but now a crime against the State and was severely punished.
Jerome was working under the demands of "political correctness" which prevailed at that time. Anything which he wrote or believed which countermanded the authority of the Emperors was analogous to one standing before the president of the United States, today, brandishing a weapon and slinging 19th century racial slurs.
We have a revealing sense of how dangerous writing the truth could be during this era from Procopius: "You see, it was not possible, during the life of certain persons, to write the truth of what they did, as a historian should. If I had, their hordes of spies would have found out about it, and they would have put me to a most horrible death. I could not even trust my nearest relatives. That is why I was compelled to hide the real explanation of many matters glossed over in my previous books."
One could now legitimately ask, why then did the King James Bible of 1611 retain the word power(s) in Romans 13?
The answer is in the rules that were set down to guide the translators, one of which was: "When a Word hath divers Significations, that to be kept which hath been most commonly used by the most of the Ancient Fathers, being agreeable to the Propriety of the Place, and the Analogy of the Faith."
This is a most curious rule since the translators rejected St. Paul’s, who by the way was the most Ancient father, use of the word "exousia" in favor of Jerome’s "potestatibus." One can only guess what part the marriage between the Church of England and the English state with its Divine Right of Kings dogma played in that decision. However, I doubt either were far from the minds of those learned 17th century translators.
It is my contention that since the state has a long history of using physical threats, not the least of which have included the threat of death in the suppression of civil liberties; there is no reason to assume the state’s innocence in the marginalization of St. Paul’s thoughts in Romans 13.
The state’s chronic dishonesty accompanied by pervasive intrusions into all aspects of our lives has rendered, as Professor Block says, "no real important distinction… between the state and any run of the mill ‘private’ criminal gang. The only difference is better public relations on the part of the former; Both are organized criminal gangs; one has public legitimacy, the other does not." (Emphases are Professor Block’s)
The question of secession then becomes a moot point, for only cohorts in the ongoing criminal actions would refuse to extricate themselves from that which seeks to destroy the calling of mankind to liberty.
Equally essential is the realization that any act from an individual or collective of individuals in favor of the right to do anything one wishes as long as it doesn’t infringe on the rights of others, is by definition an act of secession and will be labeled sedition by the hoodlums in power.
However, regardless of the consequences, the highest calling of man remains freedom, which reaches back beyond Plato and Aristotle and is embodied in the Greek word "exousia." Sadly, all of history points to it being a costly struggle and with the current political and economic climate it looks to be again.
So let’s at least start by putting away these childish semantic games that have been the hallmark of state supported abuses and begin the fight from the moral high ground. The alternative is historically disastrous and morally unacceptable.
June 8, 2009
Certainly, the likelihood of this occurring is enhanced by the indication that China either will not or cannot continue to finance America’s debt. Added to our concerns is the world financial market’s growing lack of confidence in the American economy which portends the ultimate collapse of the U.S. dollar.
The warnings have been numerous and the reasoning sound; so where do we go from here?
Undoubtedly the anxieties among those who are watching these events unfold are becoming manifest in their resistance to any further state usurpations and their focus on personal survival. Ah yes, we are now contemplating, individually and collectively, the very acts that every modern, massive, centralized government since William the Conqueror has sought to suppress by law.
What is often forgotten amongst the melee of "how to" articles, is the consideration of two basic questions. First: Is there a moral justification for resistance against an increasingly pernicious centralized government? Second: If the moral justification for resistance does exist can that struggle take the form of secession?
Each of these questions is answered in the negative by the power elite. Donald Livingston gives us meticulous historical reasons why the state is so adamant in its objections.
"In time, a modern state came to be seen as an association to protect the rights of individuals, and this added a stronger presumption against secession, because any right of a people to secede could only be the aggregate right of a set of individuals. But if one set could secede, any other set or subset-down to one individual – could secede. An acknowledged right of secession would mean the unraveling of the modern state."
The soft, vulnerable underbelly of the modern state being so easily exposed explains in part why the state and its supporters have had to resort to deception shrouded in religious dogma and patriotic gibberish to justify their existence. It is simply their hope of keeping the dogs of freedom at bay.
By way of illustration we need only to return to 1860 when the Southern people where hotly debating the issue of secession.
In his book, Tupelo, John Hill Aughey relates a sermon he preached, during that year, against Southern secession while at the Poplar Creek Presbyterian church of Choctaw County, Mississippi.
The nationalistic tenor of Aughey’s sermon is immediately apparent from the Scripture on which he had chosen to base his sermon, which just happened to be Romans 13:1. "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God."
Mr. Aughey begins his sermon with a feeble attempt to juxtapose the Southern talk of secession, due in large part to the May 1860 Morrill Tariff, which would raise the average tariff from about 15% to 37%, with Israel’s "idolatry" and rebellion against Judah after the death of King Solomon.
The pastor then goes on to declare: "if we, as the ten tribes, resist the ordinance of God, (meaning, of course, the accepted dogma of Romans 13:1) we will perish. At this time many are advocating the course of the ten tribes. Secession is a word of frequent occurrence. It is openly advocated by many. Nullification and rebellion, secession and treason, are convertible terms, and no good citizen will mention them with approval."
Furthermore Aughey accents his nationalism with these words: "Where do we obtain the right of secession? Clearly not from the word of God, which enjoins obedience to all that are in authority, to whom we must be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience's sake."
As if on cue pastor Aughey calls on his congregation to find the right of state secession in the Constitution of the United States and continues his remarks with this remarkable statement.
"Henry Clay, the great statesman, Daniel Webster, the expounder of the constitution, General Jackson, George Washington, and a mighty host, whose names would fill a volume, regarded secession as treason." (Emphasis mine)
It is unquestionably true that those named would regard secession as treason. However, the good pastor conveniently neglected to mention that each, save one, owed their fortunes to those who had committed acts of secession (treason), which during the late 18th century were justified by economic and social conditions far less odious than those being faced by the Southern States in 1860.
Aughey’s sermon goes on for several more pages. However, the point is that while the sermon is expressed in 19th century words, it contains 21st century progressive sentiments. Sentiments that now espouse blind obedience to an even more abusive Federal government.
Pastor Aughey’s problem continues when he calls upon Romans 13:1 to stand as an injunction against secession.
However, the passages in the Bible as well as secular history, which are contrary to Pastor Aughey’s moral contention, are almost legion. Starting with Genesis 10 and the tower of Babel, the Psalms declaring God’s enmity with rulers and the state, Samuel’s proclaiming those who wish to rule are no better than "weeds" (Judges 9:7–15), Jesus’ own actions concerning state authority, the acts of the Apostles in disobeying Roman authority, and the Christian community through the first three centuries all tell a different story.
The problem resides in the awareness, or lack of it, concerning the history and etymology of the word "powers."
In a work entitled "The Higher Right to Choose" Brother Gregory Williams makes an incisive observation concerning the word "powers" used in Romans 13:1.
"The word is exousia and it is from two Greek words. Ex means 'of' or 'from', while ousia is ‘what one has, i.e. property, possessions, estate…’"
Even a cursory check of a Greek dictionary reveals that "exousia" has as its primary meaning: "noun feminine; power of choice, liberty of doing as one pleases."
Furthermore that is exactly how those notable thinkers of antiquity, Plato and Aristotle used the word "exousia." The Greek Glossary of Aristotelian Terms affirms that "exousia" means "a right."
Aristotle not only uses exousia as a right but further qualifies the word when he says: "The right (exousia) to do anything one wishes leaves [the political community] defenseless..."
However, Brother Gregory Williams has another shoe to drop when he writes:
"In Bryn Mawr's Classical Review we see, ‘Brancacci notices that the term used by Enomaos to refer to human freedom is not the typical Cynic one (eleutheria), but exousia, which expresses the new concept of freedom in opposition to the already defunct and unhelpful eleutheria’."
"It seems clear that Paul is telling us that we should be subject to the liberty and right to choose endowed by God. Paul understood the perfect law of liberty, to oppose liberty is to oppose the will of God for men."
This is an ugly breach in the state’s longstanding bastion of Biblical legitimacy and government’s opposition to individual freedoms. For the world of classical antiquity would have read Romans 13:1 as; "Let every soul be subject to the higher liberty. For there is no liberty except from God, and the liberties that exist are appointed by God."
So why did such an eminent scholar, who was fluent in Greek, as St. Jerome, when writing the Vulgate, use the Latin word "potestatibus;" (power, rule, force; strength, ability; chance, or opportunity) instead of the Latin "licentia" (freedom, liberty, license, leave, authorization) in Romans 13?
Jerome certainly knew that the Greek "exousia" meant liberty and freedom since in 1 Corinthians 8:9; he properly renders "exousia" as "licentia."
The answer resides in the times (360 to 420 AD) in which Jerome lived and translated the New Testament from Greek into Latin.
Gibbon’s reminds us that:
"Constantine and his successors could not easily persuade themselves that they had forfeited, by their conversion, any branch of the Imperial prerogatives, or that they were incapable of giving laws to a religion which they had protected and embraced. The emperors still continued to exercise a supreme jurisdiction over the A.D. 312–438 ecclesiastical order; and the sixteenth book of the Theodosian code represents, under a variety of titles, the authority which they assumed in the government of the Catholic Church."
On Friday, February 28, 380 AD and five years before Jerome begins his work on Epistles of St. Paul the Emperors Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius Augustuses issued an edict which commanded the people of Constantinople and the Roman Empire to embrace the name of Catholic Christians. Then added to those who didn’t, "whom We adjudge demented and insane, shall sustain the infamy of heretical dogmas, their meeting places shall not receive the name of churches, and they shall be smitten first by divine vengeance and secondly by the retribution of Our own initiative, which We shall assume in accordance with the divine judgment."
From then on what the Church would consider heresy was not only a sin against God but now a crime against the State and was severely punished.
Jerome was working under the demands of "political correctness" which prevailed at that time. Anything which he wrote or believed which countermanded the authority of the Emperors was analogous to one standing before the president of the United States, today, brandishing a weapon and slinging 19th century racial slurs.
We have a revealing sense of how dangerous writing the truth could be during this era from Procopius: "You see, it was not possible, during the life of certain persons, to write the truth of what they did, as a historian should. If I had, their hordes of spies would have found out about it, and they would have put me to a most horrible death. I could not even trust my nearest relatives. That is why I was compelled to hide the real explanation of many matters glossed over in my previous books."
One could now legitimately ask, why then did the King James Bible of 1611 retain the word power(s) in Romans 13?
The answer is in the rules that were set down to guide the translators, one of which was: "When a Word hath divers Significations, that to be kept which hath been most commonly used by the most of the Ancient Fathers, being agreeable to the Propriety of the Place, and the Analogy of the Faith."
This is a most curious rule since the translators rejected St. Paul’s, who by the way was the most Ancient father, use of the word "exousia" in favor of Jerome’s "potestatibus." One can only guess what part the marriage between the Church of England and the English state with its Divine Right of Kings dogma played in that decision. However, I doubt either were far from the minds of those learned 17th century translators.
It is my contention that since the state has a long history of using physical threats, not the least of which have included the threat of death in the suppression of civil liberties; there is no reason to assume the state’s innocence in the marginalization of St. Paul’s thoughts in Romans 13.
The state’s chronic dishonesty accompanied by pervasive intrusions into all aspects of our lives has rendered, as Professor Block says, "no real important distinction… between the state and any run of the mill ‘private’ criminal gang. The only difference is better public relations on the part of the former; Both are organized criminal gangs; one has public legitimacy, the other does not." (Emphases are Professor Block’s)
The question of secession then becomes a moot point, for only cohorts in the ongoing criminal actions would refuse to extricate themselves from that which seeks to destroy the calling of mankind to liberty.
Equally essential is the realization that any act from an individual or collective of individuals in favor of the right to do anything one wishes as long as it doesn’t infringe on the rights of others, is by definition an act of secession and will be labeled sedition by the hoodlums in power.
However, regardless of the consequences, the highest calling of man remains freedom, which reaches back beyond Plato and Aristotle and is embodied in the Greek word "exousia." Sadly, all of history points to it being a costly struggle and with the current political and economic climate it looks to be again.
So let’s at least start by putting away these childish semantic games that have been the hallmark of state supported abuses and begin the fight from the moral high ground. The alternative is historically disastrous and morally unacceptable.
June 8, 2009
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