17 posts tagged “theology”

Forget about Adam Smith, the modern day infatuation with the man, and many of his confused and daft economic views (for example, his confusion over the so-called "paradox of value"). Instead the real tradition of superior economic thought goes back a little further to the thirteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries, working from the tradition of St. Thomas Aquinas. It is the work of the Late Scholastics. Some have called them the founders of economic science. Even the first "Austrians," or the pre-Austrians.

These theologians had a remarkably grounded understanding of private property, free markets and liberty, which might be surprising to you given the horrible economic views that plague religion circles today.

Recently, to learn more about them and their thoughts, I added Alejandro A. Chafuen's Faith and Liberty: The Economic Thought of the Late Scholastics to my private Liberty library. It is a superb and succinct book.

Unlike Adam Smith and his group the Late Scholastics never got confused over the nature of value and prices. Because of this there was no confusion over why diamonds have a higher price than water. Water is more important for life, but no one is confronted with the choice of picking between all the water in the world versus all the diamonds. A man in that circumstance, who cared to live, would obviously value the water more highly. But in daily life man is confronted with "distinct" unit quantities. Water is in great abundance; diamonds are not. A man who owns a great deal of water will value additional quantities of water less and less because he can only put those additional unit quantities to less and less valued uses. They thus understood the principle of diminishing marginal utility, and also subjective value.

Money was another area they wrote about. They saw that the "worth" of money depends on its quantity relative to all other goods and services. That money, as a common medium of exchange, makes calculation possible. What is the preferable money based on? Gold. And what is inflation, caused by government? A tax.

Neither were they confused, as many are today, on what makes a "just price" and a "just wage": the voluntary interactions of persons on the free market. They understood the rationality of the pricing system, including in regards to why prices go up in times of trouble. As a result they would never have been fooled by the nonsensical modern day cries against "price gouging."

Of course they had a great concern for the poor, but it was for this reason that they understood the importance of the market place. It is a shame that they are not more known and that so many Catholics, not to mention Christians in general, have left this particular tradition behind to replace it with various socialist ideologies. It is the reason this book should be read far and wide.

Parenthetically, for those interested, a good book to read along with Faith and Liberty is The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. Everyone, even non-Catholics, could benefit. It is a good standalone introduction to Austrian economics. I would especially recommend it to traditional conservatives who are skeptical of capitalism and the free market.

Articles to Read:

• "Juan de Mariana & the Influence of the Spanish Scholastics" by Jesús Huerta de Soto
• "Catholicism, Protestantism, and Capitalism" by Murray Rothbard
• "Morality and Economic Law" by Thomas Woods
  
• "Catholics and Capitalism" by Woods
• "Economics and Profit: A Final Word" by Woods
  

Reviews/Overviews of Faith and Liberty:

• "Faith and Liberty" by Woods
• "Christianity's Free-Market Tradition" by Stephen Carson
• "Profits vs Society: Must We Choose?" by Carson

I hope you had a very merry, blessed, and holy Christmas day. Hopefully the New Year, 2008, will be a very productive and happy one for you and your family. In view of the fact that I have broken the rules before when it comes to topics on theology and Catholicism (and a couple of other subjects), and given the time of the year, I would like to type a little bit about the new book Sacred Then and Sacred Now: The Return of the Old Latin Mass by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

It is an excellent, very slim book that can be read in one sitting; especially great for the laymen. It is very handy. All Catholics not familiar (or whose familiarity is very little) with the Old Mass should go buy it, particular in light of this Mass being made more available in the future.

As I said in a previous blog entry, I purchased a copy for myself and for another person, a priest. It might be too basic for him, but I did learn from it. I'm much too young, the New Mass (now a.k.a. "ordinary form") is what I know. My experience with the Tridentine Mass ("extraordinary form") is little. The majority of my "experience" I have with it is just by reading about it. It is not offered in many places. Many of those that do experience it regularly drive hours every week, something not that feasible for many others that would like to attend this form of the Mass.

This is changing, though. Pope Benedict XVI's liberation of the extraordinary form will make it more widely available to those that desire it. As the Pope has written (July, 2007 letter to the bishops), and is the first quote in the book you will see inside:

What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place.

What was then holy is still holy today, in other words. It cannot just be left behind, abandoned or forbidden. This is just common sense, at least it should be. (I grant that "common sense" is defined differently in today's world. Haha.)

In Sacred Then and Sacred Now, Dr. Woods explores some of the writings of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, before he became Pope. This exploration shows that he always had a deep love and appreciation for the old liturgy, even though he did not reject reform or been as much as a critic as some traditionalists.

One component of his thoughts has been that liturgical reform must be developed and changed organically; not abruptly. One cannot just break from the past. He also believes that Mass has now become more man-focused versus God-focused and that changes have given more individual concoction for creativeness in the new missal detached from a binding and sharing to all members of the Church. For a greater taste on this, see this article by Woods which was adapted for the book.

Woods also examines Pope Benedict XVI's issued motu proprio Summorum Pontificum. (The Pope's document and his letter to the bishops are included in the book at the end in the appendix section.) The message of these documents echoes the above. The Old Mass was not "outlawed." A group of people that desire it should be able to get it by asking their pastor, and he should do his best to grant their request. If he does not, they should then go to the diocesan bishop. And if that does not work, then they should go to the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei." This (quoting Summorum Pontificum) "will exercise the authority of the Holy See." Thus, writes Woods, "the Pope expects his instructions to be obeyed ... [his] message to the bishops could scarcely be clearer."

Chapter three in the book gives a simple guide to the extraordinary form. Like the rest of the book, it is very well done and easy to read.

The next two chapters highlight the differences between the extraordinary and ordinary forms. I believe Woods does this very well, and answers objections to the extraordinary form powerfully----but understandably for the beginner. It shows how political correctness has taken over today, even in the Church. And how, in my view, the ordinary form does appear to cheapen the Mass.

This includes talk on the reasons for communion on the tongue, and kneeling for it. Woods writes about why only male altar servers are allowed and Eucharistic ministers are not used.

He tries to clear up "common misconceptions." For example, Woods talks about why Latin should be used because of its nature of being (as Pious XI said) "universal, immutable, and non-vernacular." The Catholic Church goes beyond nations, nationality, ethnicity, race. Its language should reflect that and should unite people. How wonderful is the idea that if one is traveling to a place around the world that the same Holy, True Mass is taking place. Woods also addresses the claims that people did not understand the Old Mass or that it supposedly diminished participation. Another complaint that is dealt with, is the priest and how he has his back to the people. (As if, Woods says, the people are the center of the Mass! An unfortunate example of today's misplaced modernism.) Then there is the criticism that the Old Mass should be rejected because it is really not that ancient.

You will find some online and offline resources at the end, plus a sermon of Father Calvin Goodwin.

Buy it here.

Merry Christmas

The Ron Paul Revolution Continues

Listen to Ron Paul's essay "Mises and Austrian Economics: A Personal View" here [mp3].

The Establishment Attempts to Attack Rep. Ron Paul. But fail.

Dr. Paul did a fine job combating Cavuto's smears on FOX "NEWS." You know, I would hate to find out who the donors of Giuliani are! Supporters include, but not limited to, pro-nuclear strikes against Iran (and beyond), pro-torture, pro-mass bombing of innocents, pro-patriot act, pro-dictatorial power in the executive, etc. Such things have more in common with any kind of Nazism than Ron Paul's attack on 90% of the federal government's coercive apparatus which is unconstitutional. And, by the way, the last time I checked Nazism or some kind of supremacy is a "big government" and socialist philosophy. As of yesterday when I went to www.ronpaul2008.com, I saw the opposite philosophy. Hmm. Interesting.

The Opponents.

In The American Conservative, Michael C. Desch writes that "Giuliani has surrounded himself with advisors who think the Bush Doctrine didn’t go nearly far enough." No wonder neoconservatives love this guy: a complete fascist in the true economic sense of the word. A guy that has made millions after 9-11 in big government contracts for his "private" security firm. Glenn Greenwald writes he is an "Authoritarian Temptation."

(Also check out Philip Giraldi's "No More Slam Dunks" in TAC.)

Daniel McCarthy, at Taki's Top Drawer, writes on "Huckabee: The New Huey Long." Huckabee is Mr. "Tax-Hike Mike." And, of course, pro-empire. Great... just what we all need.

Marcus Epstein writes on "Romney and the Rockefellers." If someone asked Gov. Romney if he supports affirmative action, it is obvious his response would likely be "No" to please the College Republican baking activists. But how is today's notion of civil "rights" to be enforced in the private or educational sectors? Why, by affirmative action! How else do you think it can be enforced?

John Derbyshire & Ron Paul.

Not all that surprising was National Review's endorsement of the empty suit Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination. But what is surprising is a gentleman named John Derbyshire, a political pundit associated with this magazine who seems not all bad and who is also a guru in mathematics (a subject I also enjoy). Derbyshire wrote an article endorsing Ron Paul!

Justin Raimondo speaks about Derbyshire. He also gave him the honor of being the "Conservative of the Year" at AntiWar.com here. ... Be careful, Mr. Raimondo, you are going to make Mr. Derbyshire's job security uncertain. Soon he will be called an "unpatriotic conservative."

The Empire, Neocons, and More

Raimondo:

It’s the end of a year that sets a record for American casualties in Iraq --and yet, we are told, the "surge" is "working." We’re well into an election season in which the American voting public overwhelmingly opposes this war, and wants our troops out by the end of ’08 – and yet the "major" presidential candidates of both parties are pledged to keep us in, indefinitely. As we look back on the events of 2007, we can’t help but detect this strange pattern of inversion, which I have previously dubbed the "Bizarro World effect."

"The Latest Neocon Hissy Fit" by Thomas DiLorenzo.

Making War: A Conversation with Thomas E. Woods Jr.

Are anti-Ron Paul conservative Republicans allies to freedom or limited government? Of course no. Jacob G. Hornberger writes about it.

"The beginning of political wisdom," says Robert Higgs, "is the realization that despite everything you've always been taught, the government is not really on your side; indeed, it is out to get you." Read his "Four Types of Government Operatives: Bullies, Muggers, Sneak Thieves, and Con Men."

With some Christmas money I am going to purchase The Economics of Liberty ed. by Llewellyn Rockwell. It has essays from Rockwell, Rothbard, Tucker, Sobran, and others. The price is right: just $5.

Also, for those interested, Thomas Woods has a new book on Catholicism. It is called Sacred Then and Sacred Now: The Return of the Old Latin Mass. You can buy it here. I purchased two copies. One for me and another for a gift to someone else. (See Relighting the Flame of Catholicism.)

A few entires back, The Paleo Blog had a entry on the limits of blog time----and why I should keep my mouth shut on what I plan to type about next----has been confirmed. To make up for the slightly lower activity, here are a few random thoughts...

• Republicans, Democrats, and especially neoconservatives (pass the Kool-aid around!) have tried to parade General Petraeus as an independent man disconnected from politics and partisanship. One must suppose that this also applies to a government welfare worker who gets his paycheck from tax money. Does he not have a self-interest? He has no incentive? That is, he would gladdy say something that might put his job at risk? (See "Why the Military Fails To Protect Us" by Thomas J. DiLorenzo) Men that work for government have self-interests. It is a statist myth that one who seeks political work becomes transformed into a superman above and beyond the average Joe. Petraeus was picked for a reason. Here is a man who three years ago wrote a glowing report about how wonderfully swell the military training of Iraqis was going. And here is a man who is interested in seeking elected office! Connected with politics? Nah. . . . These Republican cheerleaders would never let this stuff be said without denouement if he was working for a Democrat president.
  
• Of course, the Bush administration has a history of politicking. That's the name of the game of politics. The latest issue of TAC (Oct 22) reminds the readers of Lawrence Lindsey. In 2002 he predicted that the war would cost somewhere in the range of 100 to 200 billion dollars. What happened? He was fired. Nah, this cannot possibly be for political reasons! Instead we had people like Paul Wolfowitz that said the war would basically pay for itself. Welcome to the Fantasy Land of Neoconservatism. The only sad truth is that Lindsey's figures were still far too conservative. The war has cost over $602 billion, plus the $150 billion the Congress recently signed in.
• Lindsey was nothing new. Does that remind you somewhat of what happened with the prescription drug bill? Same thing. If one wants to speak about Big Government conservatism, one does not need to look any further than this bill. Not to mention such expansions of a doubling of the department of education----just what this nation needs...the central government giving orders to local schools.
  
• The great Patrick J. Buchanan asks the question: Who Restarted the Cold War?
  
• Old Rightist H. L. Mencken reminds us that we cannot take politics too seriously. He wrote: "We live in a land of abounding quackeries, and if we do not learn how to laugh we succumb to the melancholy disease which afflicts the race of viewers-with-alarm. I have had too good a time of it in this world to go down that chute."
• I found this funny: The creep Sen. Larry Craig, who says he does not own a computer nor use the Internet, is on the government Internet commission board. These people seek to regulate the Internet (e.g., net "neutrality"), but some of them do not even use the Internet. How informed can you be without actually using it? Well, not much at all. And there are people out there who trust in government to regulate and manage.....well, everything. Yikes. Of course, they reply, we just need the "right" people in charge of the loot. Ha ha. (See, for example, "A Pair of Liberals" by Joseph Sobran.)
  
• Now for the "big issue" of politics: The same above creep, Craig, claims that he lowered his hands because he needed to pick up toilet paper stuck on his shoe. Give me a break. Who would reach down to touch toilet paper on the ground in a men's bathroom? Answer: No one. No one would remove it with their hands in a men’s bathroom. No one.
• Less and less people see the two political parties (the Stupid and Evil party) as much different. The Republican Party and the Democrat Party are just the Washington Party; plan and simple. But there are still a few hold outs. I guess it is the Rush Limbaugh crowd. Recently he was talking about how the Republicans believe in restoring control to the people compared to the Democrats who wish to regulate our lives from morning to night. How many people take that seriously? What have the Republicans been doing these years in power?
• This brings me to the "opposition party." They keep expanding the war and keeping it going. Some "opposition" it is. It is not often that I watch the mainstream media, but when I have they have tried to show Obama has an "anti-war" candidate versus Clinton. Hmm... Obama has the same voting record as Clinton in war, since he has been in office. (Actions speak louder than words.) He is as much as a war-pusher as she is. Or take Edwards. What has he said? He said that he would not make a commitment to bring the troops back home by 2013. These candidates are a joke.
• Now to Rep. Ron Paul. Dr. Paul is the only top tier candidate, by far, who is principled on the war. This issue is of paramount importance. People can debate taxes or abortion or regulations, but war is killing and destruction. It is on a different level. You cannot bring back the dead. This is why a few on the left realize that he is the person to support. All principled anti-war people should be supporting him and backing him. But then you have those on the left who say they are "anti-war," but would rather support one of the top warmonger candidates on the Democrat ticket. Those are about the worst priorities someone can have. So I would not call them anti-war. It affirms my view that most on the left (even the semi-principled left) are not anti-war. On top of that, another large chuck of them would disappear in their support of the "humanitarian" wars. Making some kind of "political alliance" with them (most of them, anyway) is a waste of time. (The same, by the way, goes for the vast, vast majority of today's self-described conservatives.)
  
• I did not comment on the last Republican presidential primary "debate." When was that exactly? All of these "debates" have blurred. I only caught the last minutes. But I did read around on the net to see how it went: pretty bad. Someone on the Internet counted all the minutes that each of the candidates had at this (circus) event. Predict who got the least amount of time. If you guessed Ron Paul, you would be correct. Paul is no "third tier" candidate. But the establishment treats him as one.
• Speaking of that "debate," I read that Sen. McCain suggested Rep. Paul to read an economics book, in particular The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. Considering that Ron Paul is very connected with the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Has deeply read the works of Mises, F. A. Hayek, Murray Rothbard, and others. Adam Smith he has probably read too. What is the chance that McCain has read the very book that he recommended Dr. Paul to read? I would say fairly low. In fact, go to the Mises Institute store and you will see a few books by Ron Paul on economics. Maybe McCain should pull open a book on economics?
• To continue to pick on McCain: Here is also a guy who says that if it was up to him he would lower interest rates to zero. Bizarre. More proof that they should not be running the economy.
• I am always impressed by the grassroots of the Ron Paul Revolution. Here is an example: RonPaulRadio.com.
• Christopher Hitchens, author of God is not Great, is a mad man. He is an unstable personality and a drunk, to boot. It truly is funny, as so many others have noted, that he blames war on religion. But here we have a man who calls for genocide in the Middle East. Who is pro-Iraq War, the Roman Catholic Church or Hitchens? See: "Christopher Hitchens and Genocide" "Hitchens Unhinged," and Sobran on him.
• Ron Paul gave a great analogy on the rise of statism: We have replaced Adam Smith's "invisible hand" with the government's "iron fist." Let's return to the idea of the invisible hand. The true classical liberal ideal.
• Here are a couple of interesting blogs I discovered: First, for a non-political, but Catholic, blog. Servant and Steward is run by a bright and young priest. The second one is run by a gentlemen who has recently wrote a few articles for LRC. A very unique blog: The Western Confucian.
  
• Language and politics is an ever changing and transforming thing. This is why I am not the biggest fan of political or ideological labels. But sometimes one has to use the language that is currently in use to get a message across. Now there have been a lot of similar reply comments to blog entries and articles at Taki's Top Drawer that put libertarianism and neoconservatism on the same side. There is so much wrong with thinking that. Where to start? Do we start with the war topic? Or the neoconservative thirst for more government power? Their idea of a hegemonic globalism? They are white and black in differences. . . . . It is true that libertarianism is more "dogmatic," whereas traditional conservatism or paleoconservatism is a certain kind of temperament, mentality or frame of mind. But this is looking at libertarianism too one-dimensionally. It would take too long here to try to cover this topic systematically (take a look at past entires here at this blog), but some of these individuals have linked the two groups of people as the same on economics. People link political centralization (or "globalism") of power for "economic reasons" to libertarianism. How does libertarianism, property understood, support this? It does not. If paleoconservatives want to believe in protectionism, then fine----and have a debate. (Reading Hazlitt first would help, though.) But they should not mislabel the libertarian view. This is just like the past entries I have had. I have tried to point out, especially to leftists, that today we have a fascist and socialist healthcare system as it is. But people act like it is a free market! I almost want to give up repeating the definitions of what a free market is and is not. One more passing comment on this: No, unlike a title of some book by Any Rand, I do not think selfishness is a "virtue." Nor is excessive cupidity on my agenda. (See, for example, "Do We Worship the Market?" by Anthony Gregory.)

The climate of opinions, if one were to canvass the public, would lean to say that the study of religion and the study of other academic subjects, like literature and mathematics, be sundered, whereas theology is left out altogether of public schools. This view that no religion should be studied in school has always been puzzling to me. Is an educated child (or man) one who somnambulates through a dark room of ignorance? As I type this entry, this is not now, at least at this very moment, a post on theism versus atheism, which would completely miss the whole point, or having government impose religious values, which I find somewhat a silly topic because government schools will be imposing values one way or another. The topic is on becoming an educated man. To become an educated man requires an understanding of theology. Religion gives such a strong cultural bond in society that walking in ignorance of it is intellectual sloth. It has played such a essential role, for good or evil, in Western Civilization. Even atheist parents could recognize this and send their children to a private school that instructs accordingly so as to not leave their children in ignorance.

Well, as I reflect, maybe it is best that government schools do not touch religion. (Although, as I say this, this does not relieve the moral responsibility of the parents to give their children the necessary education, if their children are educable.) The State will only use it to their aims, and that the State did in the past. But it is best that they, the government schools, touch....nothing. Short of the day that government schools do not exist, and if that day comes I know a freedom spirit is blowing in the winds, the answer to education is to decentralize it as much as possible. It is in decentralization and secession that brings us closer to society based on private property and private law.

But I'll go further, as society continues moving towards statism and multiculturalism. As this social bond, the social bond of Christianity, keeps lessening in the West to be replaced by today's decadent and chaotic culture, one wonders if Western Civilization can survive or ever, shall we say, be born again. This transcendent and spiritual bond and connection in the minds of individuals gives rise, to what Edmund Burke called the "moral imagination." (This moral imagination expresses itself through the high arts.) Community and religion today have been replaced by nationalism and statism. As Russell Kirk wrote in the essay "Civilization Without Religion?" [PDF], those are no substitutes. You destroy the foundation and the whole thing collapses. Unity evaporates.

In one sentence in this essay, the late Kirk hits on something that I have thought about recently:

Faith no longer works wonder among us: one has but to glance at the typical church built nowadays, ugly and shoddy, to discern how architecture no longer nurtured by the religious imagination.

This exemplifies a civilization that has lost its way. When I look at the newer Roman Catholic Churches built, they so sadly fit Kirk's description.

An empty imagination of a people does not stay a vacuum, but instead fills with nihilism and hedonism of moral relativism. All objective judgments are lost and soon such a culture will loose any notion of natural rights or natural norms. One which also sees no limits to State power. In fact, Christianity was the start of the cerebration that even the State was under moral laws. Exactly why I am a anarcho-capitalist. The State is wholly a immoral institution in every way. As I recently quoted Lew Rockwell; "It skews the culture toward decadence and trash." He was referring to the presidency, but it fits with all of government. It also skews the engine of civilization, that is capitalism... Whereas religion, which the State also skews, is the "soul" of civilization, so to speak.

Hmm. Actually, we have not lost "religion," it is just warped into this pseudo-"religion" of today. This fake religion is the religion of Statism. It is at the center mind of so many do gooders who want to implement various government programs to turn earth into their form of Heaven. Reality will always bite back, though. There will be "blowback" because there is an actual economic reality (there are laws of economics) of how the world works-------a world of scarcity. I am not only picking on left-liberals and their economic socialism ------- this applies just as well to right-statists with their moral socialism (which results in worsening conditions and the detachment of the individual from intermediating social institutions, that Robert Nisbet understood all too well) or the fake right who worship democracy, Wilsonism, Bush, and the nightstick.

The Death of the West by Pat Buchanan is one of the most important books in recent times, and fits into this topic very well. He starts the book by quoting T. S. Eliot, which I will do here, to conclude this entry of thoughts.

See Also:

• Christianity and State Archive at LRC
• The Menace of the Religious Left by Rothbard
• Saint Hillary and the Religious Left

[ For More on Housing and What's Happening: The Fed Bought What? by John Paul Koning | The Housing Bubble and the Credit Crunch by George Reisman | Housing Doom Blog ]

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Passing Thought: Is Anarcho-Capitalism the Future?

Does this, the reality and underline workings of the market place and its natural laws of constraints and restrictions on the actions and of the outcomes of man’s actions, make a purely market society, i.e. anarcho-capitalism, certain in the long-long-run? I do not claim to know the answer to that question. It is possible, ...perhaps.

Although, while I ponder this question there are, to be sure, driving-forces in men that are hostile to markets and market based activities. One of the troubles is that statist ideas hold anarcho-capitalism back. This may or may not be the paramount reason. Exploration or people dreaming up “something for nothing” scams are “natural” to man. (I use the “natural” part, or word, loosely. I am not denying or trying to contradict the natural law that individuals posses their own person and justly acquired property.) The State is the way to institutionalize those mentioned evil desires. They could not get that far in anarcho-capitalism.

One might, no --- should, also dive into religion to understand the fallen nature of man. To be clear on one tangent point: Somewhere I read that libertarians supposedly forget that man is conceived with original sin. This is not necessarily the case. I cannot speak for other libertarians, but I am not a utopian nor do I deny that man is a sinner. Like, for example, Joe Sobran I would just say that an anarcho-capitalist society would help to maximize the goods and minimize the bads. Nor, as I type this, do I mean to say I am a utilitarian. I believe in natural rights; in addition I believe that natural rights are perfectly consistent with my religious and spiritual beliefs.

Well, time is limited right now. I might develop these thoughts in more depth at a future time to post up at The Paleo Blog. But Frank Chodorov brings some wisdom on this issue in his Rise and Fall of Society; so does Albert Jay Nock in his Memoirs of a Superfluous Man.

Law and order was not always through government and statism. A difficulty that arrives for libertarians is to try to have people think about other possible social arrangements. Thinking about the possibilities of a stateless order, which is the full expression of libertarianism, is too much for most people to even consider. They cannot see beyond the present social arrangement, as if it were the only one that existed and could ever exist.

Take, for example, Old Rightist Frank Chodorov in his book The Rise and Fall of Society, where he quotes and examines Judges 17:6 where the Bible says; "In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes." Authority and judges were there, though. Law existed. Tradition and custom helped hammer them out. It was a conservative order. But these private authorities did not have the "power of coercion." This order lasted four centuries. As nomads and tribes started to settle down, "sheepherding was giving way to agriculture." The economic order changed. But then, two emergencies, says Chodorov, occurred during this time. First being that the Philistines "beaten them roundly in battle" and the second being people "lost faith in their leadership." According to the Bible, they "turned aside after lucre, and took bribes and perverted judgment."

It was because they had forsaken the rigorous tradition of their forefathers, with its insistence on self-reliance and personal integrity, that they had lost the victorious touch which carried them from Egypt to the outskirts of the Promised Land; the breakdown of the Judge system could be traced to the same lack of self-discipline. Therefore, said Yahweh, give them what they ask for [a king], but as a parting shot you might “shrew them the manner of the king that shall rule over them”; and tell them also that when they realize their mistake it will be too late to regain freedom: “The Lord will not hear you in that day.” This is an interesting comment, seeming to stress the point that when a people put their faith in a State, rather than themselves, there is no way for them to remove the noose from their necks.

So a kingdom was set up. Conscription and (limited) taxation was introduced.

Chodorov continued:

One could go behind the returns and make out a case against these revolutionists: perhaps they constituted a newly arisen landowning class and hoped to solidify their position under a kingship. More likely, fear had entered their hearts, as is usually the case when a people accustomed to success are faced with adversity, and they were quite willing to swap freedom for the promise of subservient security. The search for a demigod is inherent in the human makeup; fear of the problems of life tends to weaken self-reliance and to encourage belief in a deliverer. Faith in political power is a comfortable flight from reality.

The adoption of a government did not help matters...

From the very beginning of the royal establishment the troubles of Israel multiplied. There was the usual spate of wars with the Philistines, with varying degrees of success; internal dissension, heretofore rare in the experience of the tribesmen, became common. Some followed Saul, others revolted against his rule; more exactly, they resisted the establishment of those institutions which Samuel had warned them would come with a king. But, as Samuel said, there was no way of regaining freedom once the State had made its appearance, and the Judge was soon on the lookout for a new deliverer. . . .

Later came the rise of David and Solomon. Chodorov says that one of the lessons to be learned from this is that the acquisition of political power creates the impression for the ruler (or the one seeking to rule) of having "a surpapersonal quality and to become in itself . . . a shine for public worship." The ruler acts and rules as if shielded from the consequences of his actions.

As the king was first adopted here, people still had some concept of freedom. There was some resistance to expansions of power. The propaganda of the king being ever wise and supreme takes time.

As his [the king’s] quest for power reaches beyond his purview, as it always does, he finds it necessary to delegate some of his power to and share his prerogatives with a supporting oligarchy----military, ecclesiastical (or intellectual) and, in time, commercial or industrial groups which lend themselves to his purpose in return for the special privileges he grants them.

This is exactly what Solomon did. He dressed up his temple so that the "kingship [had] an aura of omnipotence" and tied naturally arriving authorities in his pockets. Leviathan needs ideological support, after all.

Rehoboam institutionalized heavy taxation.

The designation of taxation as a yoke is a nice piece of biblical directness. A yoke is worn by an ox, a beast of burden, which by nature is incapable of claiming a property right in the products of its labors. It follows that when a human being is deprived of that right his status approximates that of an ox, and if taxation takes all he produces beyond that needed to sustain life (the wages of an ox), it can rightly be called a yoke.

Jeff Tucker Interviews Lew Rockwell
Audio [MP3] ~ They talk about Rockwell's visit, with Ron Paul, to Google.

Ron Meets Google
Watch YouTube Video

Ron Paul's YouTube Interview
Watch YouTube Video

Justin Raimondo On Ron Paul at TakiMag.com
"Ron Paul: The Conscience of Conservatism"

33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask
More Articles and Sneak Peeks at Thomas Woods' New Book.
Book Preface - "What the History of the Bathtub Can Teach Us"
Plus "Were American Indians Really Environmentalists?"

Pat Buchanan on War
Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan asks: "Is the United States provoking war with Iran, to begin while the Congress is conveniently on its August recess?" . . . "[S]omething smells awfully fishy here," writes Buchanan.
See "Tonkin Gulf II and the Guns of August?"
And "This Is How Empires End"

Plotting Martial Law
"Working for the Clampdown" by James Bovard.

Justin Raimondo Goes After So-Called Pro-War "Libertarianism"
"Bizarro 'Libertarianism':  Fake libertarian legal scholar crawls out of the woodwork to attack Ron Paul's antiwar stance"

Gary North on The Evil of Envy
Read his superb LRC article here.
In addition to great commentary by North, this might benefit the menace of what is known as the religious left.

Ron Paul is not the only person burning bright a torch of light and reason. One is starting to burn bright for Catholics and, as Charles Coulombe argues, for Western Civilization itself:

...What these illustrious folk understood, better than many theologians, was that the health of the Catholic Church was and is integral to the health of the West. If our civilization is to withstand its current slate of internal and external foes—throughout Europe and the Diaspora—it must regain its hold on the things that first enkindled its spirit. Restoration of liturgical sanity and unity within the Catholic Church will inevitably have a beneficial “trickle-down” effect far beyond the Church’s borders. Those who prize the health of the West must welcome Benedict XVI’s action, regardless of their own creed.

(Next, it would be nice, if Catholicism turned around and accepted some of the ideas that are in Thomas Woods' The Church and the Market.)

Articles:

• "Could the Latin Mass Save Western Civilization?" by Charles A. Coulombe
• "A triumph for traditionalists" by Pat Buchanan
• "Benedict XVI and the Great Liberation" by Thomas Woods

See Also: The Paleo Blog's "Catholicism --- Authority and Economics", which contains a quote from the late Robert Nisbet and some Catholic links.