| Sin and Government |
| By popular demand, I'm updating! When I get comments like "Why does your blog still say that you're sick?" from the Storyteller and the ever-so-subtle "Hon, you should update your diary" from mia amino, it's probably time to update.
Then I checked, and realized that I haven't updated in almost 20 days... That IS too long. I guess the reason I haven't really updated is that my life is basically normal at the moment. As you, my faithful readers, know, I tend to use this space for whining and complaining and depressed introspection. In other words, it's like most online diaries... But, I really don't feel the need to do any of those things at the moment. So, I'm going to write a touch (not a whole lot) that fits with the original intent of this diary: inquiry. Today's topic: The Law of Morality vs. the Law of Justice. See, I'm a Christian. See, I'm a libertarian. Many would then ask me "How can you be a Christian and believe in the right to publish pornography, sell drugs, allow Muslim immigrants into the country freely, etc. etc." or the fun one that Quakers get asked... "How can you be a Christian pacifist?" (Never mind the fact that there were no Christians in the Roman army until after 300AD, or that many Christians were martyred for refusing conscription.) The answer is simple. Well, in the sense that it's not really simple at all. But, it runs like this. Christians are bound by the Law of Morality. This is the broadest law of right and wrong, and basically tells each of us individually what we ought to do in almost every situation. This Law is found partially in a proper understanding of the entirety of Scripture (for simplification, anything after the Gospels is probably a part of it, though some of it may be questioned on cultural grounds... Needless to say, there is much disagreement as to where the actual line is.) It is also partially found internally in the Light of Christ (or the Holy Spirit for Christians). Good ole Quaker theology, no? Government, however, does not exist to enforce Laws of Morality, but rather Laws of Justice. (Note: these are my terms, as far as I know...) By this I mean that the purpose of human temporal law is to protect the lives and property of the citizenry. Rather than making sure that everyone acts morally, government's responsibility is only to prevent injustice. Now, there is much disagreement as to what "injustice" entails. Socialists would argue that paying too low a wage is "injustice". However, they are hard pressed to define precisely what "too low" is. There are only two logical definitions: too little to provide for the person's needs and less than someone else. Those that choose the first definition have the fun of defining "needs". And almost NEVER is it according to needs for survival. Rather, they incorporate "cultural needs" and the like. Sure, a computer isn't necessary for physical survival, but (and this is the best part) it's necessary for "social survival". Yet, I've never heard a good, solid definition of what "social death" is... I'd really like to hear a good, cut-and-dried definition of that that doesn't allow the government to do "just anything" in trying to prevent it. Those that hold to the second definition are the hardcore egalitarian socialists. In their view, anyone having any more than anyone else is a great evil that must be eradicated. I will not attack this view as of now. However, it is even more open to attack than the other definition. From a libertarian standpoint, the Laws of Justice concern one thing alone: Property Rights. Violation of property rights occurs in two ways: Force and Fraud. Force is (clearly) the violation of someone else's property without their consent. This violation can be take many forms. However, the unifying characteristic is this: a violator uses the victim's property in a way that the victim has not agreed to either implicitly or explicitly. IF there is an agreement, force is only present if lack of an agreement would result in a violation of one of the agreers property. (For example, "Give me your wallet, or I'll shoot you.") Fraud is outright deception. Sharing false information to get someone to do something they would not otherwise. Fraud is NOT just not telling someone something. Not telling me that the car I'm buying from you has an oil leak is not fraud. After all, I have no reason to assume that the car is in perfect condition (which is true of ANY product you buy, really. I mean, who ASSUMES that no chips are going to be broken when you open the bag?) Just not telling me what is wrong with it is not fraud. However, if you expressly tell me that it doesn't have an oil leak, that's a different matter. To put it a different way... Only actions should be illegal. Inactions should not be. I know, this defense is far from complete. However, it's a brief overview of my perspective. Also, tying in certain other aspect of my Christian thought to government as "sin restraint" and libertarianism may be interesting. So, I'm going to do it a little bit here. My friend the Chemist talks about how government is here to restrain sin, and his problem with libertarianism is that it (to use the analogy we used the other day) "tears down the dam before the source of the water is stopped up". In other words, it rips down the restraint of sin before sin is dealt with by Christ. Of course, my view is a touch different... Rather, I argue that the dam can keep the source of the water from being seen, and therefore, having the true disease NOT be dealt with. Actually, I think that my view works itself out better through history. What happens in places with big governments? The Church dies (spiritually, if not numerically) and sin runs rampant. If government is TRULY a restraint on SIN then the opposite should be true. Look at Europe. Big government, dying church, rampant sin. So, why is this? The fact of the matter is, government CAN'T restrain sin. All it can do is restrain the consequences of sin. (Now I wish I had come up with this argument the other night...) And, the more the consequences are restrained, the less sin will be restrained. (Because the consequence of sin is death.) Now, sometimes it's worth it to restrain the consequences of our inherent sinful nature. This is when the sinful nature strikes out against OTHER people. But, when the sinful nature wrecks our own life, even though it might make friends and family sad or emotionally pained, it can (and often DOES) reveal the sin that we are stuck in, and God works THROUGH that revelation to bring repentence and eventual holiness. But, when the sin gets papered over by government action, it doesn't get revealed, and is never dealt with. The true church begins to die as the church either becomes an arm of government (as in the Inquisition) that participates in the evil of "restraining" sin. OR, the church dies spiritually as it begins to adopt a humanistic view claiming that sin has been eliminated from man by social action (as in some of the more liberal mainstream churches). And when this view is adopted, the church dies numerically as it claims its own nonnecessity. (Note: People should not wonder that the growing sect of Quakerism is the evangelical one.) I'm going to go a step further, because I am so inspired. In as far as government does "restrain" outright sin, it leads its people into hypocrisy. It makes its citizenry like the Pharisees. White washed tombs filled with rotting dead men's bones. Changed action without a changed heart IS the definition of hypocrisy. Therefore, the only reason government should do that (morally) is if it prevents a greater evil (and there are very few evils greater than hypocrisy). The only one I can think of is the intentional harm of another person. While "self" sins deny the Imago Dei of the self, "other" sins deny both the Imago Dei of the self and the Imago Dei of the other. This is a great sin indeed. Sin, by its nature, kills the spirit of man by denying the self's humanity. However, when one sins against another one also demotes the other to the place of an animal. Now, let's think about socialist government and what it does. By denying the wealthy the right to the fruits of their labor or the labor of their ancestors, it is denying their humanity. Socialism is nothing more than a watered down genocide of the rich. Now, I do not claim that the rich are spotless. At times they do and have participated in using force and fraud to extract wealth from others. However, by the Laws of Justice, each must be punished for his own evil (sin against others is my definition of "evil"). So, if a man is rich because his grandfather was an evil man, that is no reason to punish him by taking HIS wealth away. He did not do wrong to anyone when he received it. Should he have received it in the metaphysical "we can undo the past without punishing the present" sense? No. However, we CAN'T undo the past without punishing the present. And better to leave a past evil unpunished (since it's IMPOSSIBLE to punish the evildoer) than to punish a present innocent man for it. Well, that's it for now... I just keep trying to think of a good concusion, but coming up with more to day... So, I'll close for now. Mi amas vin, mia amino. |
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