Not a Question of Ought

When it comes to the economic policies of the government, the way we tend to treat governmental policies are that the government can or cannot do certain things based on some sort of moral authority.

While the state is certainly bound to moral restrictions, it seems quite possible to me that many governmental economic policies need to be evaluated on the basis of effectiveness rather than the basis of morality.

Most governmental policies are ultimately amoral in nature. The government is morally allowed to redistribute money around. The entire function and legitimacy of government is involved with taking money from the citizenry and using it to perform its God-given functions.

Within those God-given functions, there is a good amount of amoral space where the government can look to determine how they should operate. It becomes difficult to say that many actions are simply wrong when viewed within these frameworks.

Thus, when evaluating economic policies, it is probably better to answer the question, what would the consequences of this action be, not what is the moral questions. Ultimately, there are few governmental actions that actually fall outside the realm of morals.

Desires, Blessings, and Punishments

As I listened to my Pastor preach last night over Numbers 11 (yes, our mid-week service is on Thursday), I was reminded of a consistent theme in the Bible.

In this chapter, the Israelites complain a great deal about many things. Eventually, the Israelites begin to feel dissatisfied with the manna that God has provided for the last two years in the wilderness. It has always supplied their needs, but now they simply want the taste of meat.

It is here that I remembered the consistent theme of the Bible, as the Lord responds to the complaints of the Israelites by bowing to their wishes. Indeed, the Israelites are punished by getting exactly what they wanted. But as Numbers 11:18-20 indicates, when they get it, they no longer want it.

"And say thou unto the people, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow, and ye shall eat flesh: for ye have wept in the ears of the Lord, saying, Who shall give us flesh to eat? for it was well with us in Egypt: therefore the Lord will give you flesh, and ye shall eat. Ye shall not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days, nor twenty days; But even a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and it be loathsome unto you: because that ye have despised the Lord which is among you, and have wept before him, saying, Why came we forth out of Egypt?"

The theme I keep teasing without actually mentioning is this - the Lord has this tendency to punish the people of the world (especially the Israelites) by giving them exactly what they desired.

We see that at play here, but we also see it when the Israelites reject the Lord's kingship over them. They desire to have a king as all the other nations, so the Lord gives them a king as corrupt as the kings of all the other nations.

Perhaps most strikingly, in Romans 1, we see this same principle as it applies to those who have rejected the evidence of the Lord's existence entirely. As verse 28 clearly indicates,

"And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient."

The Lord punishes them by simply allowing them to continue along the paths they set for themselves, along the pathway of sin.

But if this is such a consistent thing to see within the Bible, there is one shocking statement that must be true. If man's desires can be a punishment, then man's desires are ultimately harmful to himself.

How is it that man cannot know what is actually good for him? How is it that we consistently have our hearts in the wrong place so that we desire the wrong things? How is it that our desires don't line up with what the Lord wishes in our life?

It reminds me of Ecclesiastes 6:10-12,

"That which hath been is named already, and it is known that it is man: neither may he contend with him that is mightier than he. Seeing there be many things that increase vanity, what is man the better? For who knoweth what is good for man in this life, all the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow? for who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?"

And with that simple thought I leave you with another simple question - how are your desires? If the Lord granted them, would that be a blessing or a punishment?

A Needle in a Haystack: Privacy

Secrets. We all tend to have them. Why we have them varies from person to person. Some people keep secrets because they are afraid that people will be hurt by the truth. Some people like myself just really like to keep their lives private.

Of course, there are also the people who keep secrets because they have impure motivations. Perhaps even motivations to take down the government. 

It was precisely for these secrets that the National Security Administration (hereafter NSA) was created. Through their much publicized efforts, the NSA has created its own databases of all telephone calls in the United States. 

I know that this topic area has pretty much dropped from main coverage. However, I believe that to be an injustice. The NSA is still operating today, and it is not anymore respectful of our rights than when it first came out. We should be just as concerned now as we were then. 

With this organization, the government has access to the sensitive secrets they desire, but at the same time, all of the innocuous secrets that you and I keep and decide to share only with one another are known. 

Our plans for courtship/dating, our job situation, our greatest fears. None of these things may seem harmful for the government to have, but the question shouldn't be why not. The question we ask when we give power to the government needs to be why. 

So why should arbitrarily selected bureaucrats being given access to these areas of our private life? We only entrust certain trusted friends with them as a whole, so why would strangers have this information stored where they can reach it? 

Before we even consider the real fact of abuse within the NSA, we should question the logistics behind the situation completely. We have a right to keep our information private. From anyone we choose. 

But of course, one could argue that to get the national security information, it is necessary to make this sacrifice of this innocuous privacy. If you don't have anything to hide, don't worry about it. 

But to what extent would we carry this anyway? Is every part of our lives just commodities to be used in the government in the name of national security? God forbid. 

That though ignores the point that this database actually isn't helping national security at all. 

I'm not joking. The database that is violating all of our privacy is helping national security nary a bit. 

I am aware that such a huge claim requires some support. As such I am prepared to provide some. 

Looking for sensitive information for national security in private telephone records is like looking for a needle in a haystack. By adding in more innocent people's conversations into the mix, you are simply piling more hay into that stack, making it that much more difficult to find the needle. As Adrienne Kinne who worked with the NSa for 3 years and was recognized with a NSA Joint Service Achievement Medal explains,

"By casting the net so wide and continuing to collect on Americans and aid organizations, it's almost like they're making the haystack bigger and it's harder to find that piece of information that might actually be useful to somebody. You're actually hurting our ability to effectively protect our national security."

So really, all our secrets are being taken only to hinder national security. We are sacrificing our rights and getting nothing in return.

And this has all been under the assumption that the government would always seek our best interests. Nevermind the fact that should they ever turn truly tyrannical, they will have at their disposal everything they could possibly need to manipulate us. Our desires, our dreams, our decision-making processes, our very fears, all that makes us tick as individuals - all there to coerce us to their will should they so desire.

At least we have a relief in knowing that they have a large haystack to sort through to find our needle of information. That's something I guess.

The Splendid Samaritan: A Response to Judith Jarvis Thomson

"Most opposition to abortion relies on the premise that the fetus is a human being, a person, from the moment of conception.... The prospects for "drawing a line" in the development of the fetus look dim. I am inclined to think also that we shall probably have to agree that the fetus has already become a human person well before birth.... How, precisely, are we supposed to get from there to the conclusion that abortion is morally impermissible? Opponents of abortion commonly spend most of their time establishing that the fetus is a person, and hardly anytime explaining the step from there to the impermissibility of abortion.... I suggest that the step they take is neither easy nor obvious, that it calls for closer examination than it is commonly given, and that when we do give it this closer examination we shall feel inclined to reject it."

Thus begins one of the most disgusting defenses of abortion ever written. Judith Jarvis Thomson sets out to establish that abortion is justified not because it's not the killing of a innocent life, but rather that it is a justified killing of a human life in her highly published article, "A Defense of Abortion."

Well, I have been sitting on responding to this moral argument for a while now and it's high time that I actually write up a response. While I understand that Thomson was arguing from the perspective of an atheist, as a Christian, I cannot truly discuss an issue of morality such as this without appealing to the one true standard for morality - God. Thus, I write this post more to Christians who would support abortion. Thankfully, these are rare at the moment. I do hope that that will continue.

Fetus or Baby?

Although definitely not the focus of Thomson's point, she does point out that she does not believe an unborn baby to be strictly speaking a human being. She argues against the case simply that because this "fetus" will become a human being at some point, doesn't mean that it is a human being now. She presents the argument of an acorn. Just because an acorn will one day become an oak tree does not make the acorn an oak tree. 

This indeed is an admirable refutation of an argument for why a fetus is actually human. Thankfully, I have never actually used that argument! While I could spend time defending this argument, I find it much more valuable to just look at the Lord's word in Jeremiah 1:5

"Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations."

To prove that a fetus is truly human and has these rights, I need not do anything more than appealing to those words and the final authority on this world. It is thus unnecessary for me to mention that Thomson herself admits,

"I am inclined to agree, however, that the prospects for "drawing a line" in the development of the fetus look dim. I am inclined to think also that we shall probably have to agree that the fetus has already become a human person well before birth." 

The Violinist Analogy

The crown and jewel of Thomson's argument to defend abortion seems to be her use of the violinist analogy. Since most of the rest of her arguments are built upon this one, it is important that we properly understand her point. She writes,

"You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital now tells you, 'Look, we're sorry the Society of Music Lovers did this to you--we would never have permitted it if we had known. But still, they did it, and the violinist is now plugged into you. To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, it's only for nine months. By then he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.'" 

I think the very nature of this analogy is abominable. She tries to simply separate the act of abortion from the consequences by saying that we are just unplugging someone from access to our own body (obviously not mine, I'm male).

 But let's just take some time to point out the obvious difference between the violinist mentioned here, and the unborn baby at risk of abortion. In the first place, there was a conscious move of the violinist or those representing the violinist to put you in this position. They committed violence to cause this to happen. Those representing his interests caused violence.

But in no situation does a baby or anyone representing a baby consciously commit violence to put you in pregnancy. Yes, there can be rape, which is a violent act, but the rapist is no more a representative of the child than Barney is. It would be unjust indeed to kill the baby for the act of the father.

Rape is a horrible act of violence, but that does not condone another act of violence against the unborn baby. Unlike in the analogy of the violinist, the violence was not made on behalf of that child.

Second, the use of the organs for the violinist is an unnatural process. It is one that requires being plugged into a machine to do it for you. When a baby is conceived, however, it is the specific purpose of those organs. As Matthew Lu, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of St. Thomas, writes,

"We may begin by noticing that although it might be possible for one person’s kidneys to 'extract poisons' from another person’s blood, there is no sense in which that is a normal part of the operation of those organs.... However, there is a clear and obvious sense in which a woman’s reproductive organs are for the gestation and protection of a child.... A related difference between the two cases is revealed when we reflect on Thomson’s description of the act of 'unplugging.' It is precisely because the violinist case involves the extrinsic use of the victim’s kidneys in a non-natural way that the intuitive notion of 'unplugging' applies.... Consider how this differs from pregnancy. While it is true that pregnancy is impermanent, the end of pregnancy is built into the nature of the process itself.... In other words, the embedding of the early embryo into the uterine lining is not a 'plugging in'—there is no equivalent external agent that does the plugging... In the violinist case, the restoration is both conceptually and imaginatively clear—just pull the plug."

If we really want to examine these two points, we must acknowledge that the violinist's actions are against the proper function of the body, while the "actions" of the baby are within the natural functions of the body and it is abortion that violates that standard.

Right to My Body

The meat of the rest of Thomson's argument goes hand and hand with the meat of almost every pro-abortion argument since this article was first posted. It's my body; thus, I have a right to do with it whatever it is that I desire, even if that means death to a child. 

As Christians, we can already tell that this argument fails to hold much water. It is not strictly speaking our body at all. It is the Lord's. Indeed, the Bible goes to great lengths to show us this in I Corinthians 6:19-20 

"What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."

I guess this means I won't be mentioning that ownership doesn't give full liberty anyway (for instance, I own this pan, but I have no right to use it to kill you).

Rights vs. Obligations

Thomson's final argument presents the case that simply because I have an obligation to help you, it does not follow that you have a right to my help. Thomson specifically uses an analogy of a boy who is given chocolates and refuses to share with his brother. In Thomson's view, the boy has an obligation to share his chocolate, but his brother does not actually have a right to them.

She thus wants to distinguish between the obligation of a parent to protecting a child and the right of that child to that protection. I actually follow her logic here to a degree. This only raises the question then, what is the obligation of a parent in relation to an unborn child?

It seems very fitting that Thomson follows up the argument of the distinction of rights and obligations with the story of the Good Samaritan, as the Good Samaritan actually provides a solid obligation for Christians to not commit abortion.

Thomson writes,

"We have in fact to distinguish between the two kinds of Samaritan: the Good Samaritan and what we call the Minimally Decent Samaritan.... The Good Samaritan went out of his way, at some cost to himself, to help one in need of it. We are not told what the options were, that is, whether or not the priest and the Levite could have helped by doing less than the Good Samaritan did, but assuming they could have, then the fact that they did nothing at all shows they were not even Minimally Decent Samaritans, not because they were not Samaritans, but because they were not even minimally decent." 

Thomson then goes on a very odd distinction of different levels of Samaritans that I don't find quite worthy of discussing here. The point I would simply like to make is that we should not desire to just be minimally decent Samaritans here. We might even want to be what Thomson calls, "Splendid Samaritans." Jesus did clearly tell us to,

"Go and do thou likewise."

So we are called to help people at cost to ourselves. I don't want to ever be accused of doing too little when it comes to serving others, especially the defenseless unborn children in the womb.

There is another obligation that most people would accept -  that parents have an obligation to protect their young children from danger when they are too young to protect themselves. Sometimes this means staying up late at night and forfeiting certain functions of their body (namely, sleep) to protect the baby.

Why then do we not expect the same obligation before the child is born? As Doris Gordon, National Coordinator for Libertarians for Life, wrote,

"Most abortion-choicers accept, in principle at least, the obligation of parents to protect immature children. Not many would say that leaving one's infant unattended in hazardous situations is a matter of the parent's choice. When their children get very sick in the middle of the night and need help, most abortion choicers don't go back to sleep saying, 'So what if my kid might die? I have the right to control my own body, don't I?' What difference does it make for a woman's rights whether her kid is in the crib or in her womb? It's her self-same body after, as well as before, birth. And it's her self-same child."

Duck Dynasty Drama: The Cornerstone of Freedom Under Attack

It was the story of the week. Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson was asked about his beliefs on gay marriage. He did the only possible thing, and freely spoke his mind. Since then, there has been much outrage. Phil Robertson's comments are said to be discriminatory. A&E has in turn, discriminated against Phil, banning him from the TV network.

Immediately, Christians and conservatives around the world have clamoured and claimed that A&E is violating Mr. Robertson's freedom of speech.

But that claim is dead wrong. I'd just like to let you all know at this point that I support Phil Robertson. I believe in all that he said, but I will not change my opinion of freedom based on the political agenda that is being propagated.

Freedom of speech is a civil right. This means it is a right guaranteed us by the Constitution and Bill of Rights (and later the Civil Rights Act), all of which act to restrain government from interfering in our lives (the Civil Rights Act goes a little further; more on that later). As the great Richard Castle (yes, the fictional character) has said,

"Technically, I'd have to be the government to violate your civil rights." 

A&E as a private institution is incapable of violating the civil rights of others. (As far as I can tell, A&E did not stop Mr. Robertson's controversial comments; thus, he was allowed to exercise free speech.) Instead, they themselves have a civil right to running their businesses in a way they see fit. This may seem ridiculous to you, but all private organizations have the right to discriminate against anyone for any reason. We can argue that it is wrong of them to do so (and generally it is), but it is not within governmental jurisdiction to force businesses or any private individual to act in a manner that government sees fit.

The same conservatives speaking out against this "civil rights violation" done by A&E have made the same argument on numerous occasions. A month ago, a cake business refused service to homosexuals. There was outrage, there was want of a government intervention, but conservatives correctly pointed out it was not the government's business.

But now the stakes have changed, pushing down a more conservative agenda, and oh how much difference we see from the world around us. We have to let our principles stand no matter what supports our agenda.

This path that we have been taken on both sides of the political aisle could have massive negative repercussions to freedom in America. In Britain, this idea is completely ingrained in the law.  So when Mr. and Mrs. Bull elected not to allow any unwed couples to stay in the same room together, they were sued for discrimination, and ultimately were forced to sell their business. All because the state didn't agree with their decisions. You see, companies have their own civil rights, and if we're not careful, if we try to protect the individual's civil rights beyond how it applies to government, we will fall in a trap of violating their rights. Remember, that businesses are run by people, not machines. The CEOs are afforded the same right as individuals.

Robin Koerner of benswann.com explains this situation perfectly,

"Logically, Mr and Mrs Bull can only have committed a crime if the couple they turned away had an actual right to be served by them. Yet, the Bulls are not compelled to offer their service to anyone. So how can it be that party A’s (the Bulls) making a free choice to transact with party B (a married couple) creates a new right for party C (unmarried couple)? What kind of right would that be?"

This strikes to the very core of the issue. Everyone must have the right to their own private property, to handle it as they see fit and appropriate. Ludwig von Mises called it, "The cornerstone of every civilization." It is threatened by this ideology that has taken control of the British system.

But we in America are not much better. As you have seen, this mindset is already set in the minds of many Americans. But not only is it in the people, it is in the legislation. The Civil Rights Act for all its virtues has one major vice. It seeks to enforce its views of anti-discrimination onto private individuals and organizations.

As Senator Rand Paul explains,

"There are ten different titles to the Civil Rights Act and nine out of ten deal with public institutions and I am absolutely in favor of [them]. One deals with private institutions, and had I been around, I would have tried to modify that. But the other thing about legislation – and this is why it is a little hard to say where you are sometimes – is that when you support nine out of ten things in a good piece of legislation, do you vote for it or against it?”

The Duck Dynasty drama and debate is about a much more complicated and important phenomenon than whether A&E or Duck Dynasty are right about their views about homosexuality. Instead it sticks to the very heart of freedom. We should be afraid of the ramifications of how quick we are to apply civil rights to businesses. We should no longer push for such moves so religiously.

"For Your Sakes:" The Blame Game

In Numbers 20, (a passage I've looked at before), the Israelites complain to Moses about their want and thirst for water. They even go so far as saying Moses took them out of the land of Egypt to kill them in the wilderness due to their lack of water.

Moses immediately does the right thing. He takes his issue up with the Lord to consult his help. This is something we should all do with any trials or difficult positions in which we find ourselves.

God tells Moses to speak to the rock, and water will come out. However, Moses decides God's way is no longer the best way to solve the problem and decides instead to strike the rock as he had done before in Exodus 17.

This disobedience to the Lord would ultimately cause Moses not to be able to enter the Promised Land. As Numbers 20:11-12 states,

"And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them."

Clearly, Moses made a mistake, and this mistake kept him out of the Promised Land. Simply, it was his fault and his alone that he was unable to enter therein.

Yet, in the book of Deuteronomy, commonly considered Moses' farewell address, Moses mentions nothing of this. In Deuteronomy 1:37, Moses proclaims.

"Also the Lord was angry with me for your sakes, saying, Thou also shalt not go in thither."

"For your sakes." On two other occasions (Deuteronomy 3:25-27 and Deuteronomy 4:21), Moses blames the Israelites for his own actions, saying the Lord would not let me into the Promised Land "for your sakes." In this area, Moses refuses to take responsibility for his own actions, instead blaming it on the Israelites. Although the point can be made that the Israelites caused his sin by putting him in a precarious situation, it was still his responsibility to handle that situation with obedience to the Lord. In the end, he needed to take responsibility for his own actions and not blame it on someone else.

Of course, we need to do the same. Even the most humble servant of the Lord is not immune to making mistakes. But what is perhaps most telling of our character is how we respond. Do we take the blame or do we find someone else we can assess as the cause of all our problems?