UTOPIAN, LAISSEZ-FAIRE CAPITALISM (FAITH IN MAMMON), COERCIVE SOCIALISM, OR THE VISION OF JESUS CHRIST
It amazes me how the disciples of Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Murray Rothbard, etc., can actually write that laissez-faire capitalism is "the only fair and just economic system that has been discovered." (Michael Moore, Your Heart Is in the Right Place, by Todd Steinberg. LewRockwell.com. October 25, 2008.) They go on to say that the choices are between Communism (one-party dictatorship), socialism (usually termed democratic socialism), mercantilism, crony capitalism, and laissez-faire capitalism. At least those are the most often cited choices. I never see Christianity offered by them as an option.
It's not difficult to understand why they don't offer Christianity — don't even mention it except in some limited, twisted version.
Jesus Christ is not a Communist in the one-party dictatorship sense. He is not a coercive socialist, which includes democratic socialism. He is not a mercantilist. He is opposed to crony capitalism. He is also not a laissez-faire capitalist. Christianity is none of those things. Christianity is an alternative to them. It is something else.
What the laissez-faire capitalist Austrian-School and to a lesser degree Chicago-School advocates claim is that laissez-faire capitalism is the least coercive of the choices they mention. They claim that, that means laissez-faire capitalism is the freest condition possible. They do all of this based upon the terminology they've created and to which they hold all others, as if there are no competing definitions or connotations of the terms they use in constructing their philosophical position.
Their vision is in competition with the vision of Jesus Christ as Jesus states his position and not just as people have twisted and chopped it up down through the centuries.
Now, it is up to each individual to place the utopian vision of Murray Rothbard, et al., next to the message and example of Jesus for direct comparison. Which one is superior? Both claim the ideal. Todd Steinberg wrote an open letter to Michael Moore stating on behalf of the Austrian School, as I quoted above, that laissez-faire capitalism is "the only fair and just economic system that has been discovered." I dispute that.
Laissez-faire capitalism is not only not "the only fair and just economic system that has been discovered," it is not fair, just, nor free. Furthermore, the political-economic system that would result from humanity beginning to follow Jesus's teachings in earnest would be fairer and more just than any other system and with every passing year until absolute fairness and justice were reached. The freest one may be is free of evil. Laissez-faire capitalism does not free the soul from evil relative to Christianity.
If we are going to put all options on the table for consideration, let's not leave the completely voluntary (non-coercive) giving-and-sharing-all economic system off the table as if it doesn't exist. It exists
As I've written numerous times before, Heaven is not capitalistic. Christians are to bring forth in the here and now. We pray for Heaven to come to Earth.
Lastly, so as to not make a huge post, let me just say that laissez-faire capitalism has at its base a foundation of self-interest where the self is apart from the whole. In Christianity, that must be based on Jesus's teaching and nothing that conflicts with it, the whole is God. Think about it.
You can not be both a laissez-faire capitalist and a Christian.
No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (Luke 16:13)
Then come the Calvinists saying such things as Jesus's kingdom isn't of this world and that it isn't for us to bring forth but rather to sit or stand by never conflating and waiting for Jesus to return to do all the heavy lifting.
Jesus's kingdom isn't of this world not in the way those Calvinists view it or for the reasons they cite. Jesus's kingdom is within each heart. He made that very clear. We bring forth from what is within. If God and Jesus are indwelling as spirit, then the tree will bring forth good fruit only. It's that simple, and no amount of twisting the scripture in an attempt to get out of it will work.
Either you come together and bring forth or you are not doing what Jesus says. What we are to bring forth is very specific too. It cannot be done by those with evil intentions or who do not love God as Jesus defines God. It's not possible. Satan cannot do it. Only God can bring forth God.
All that the Calvinists teach based upon selective interpretations of a handful of verses from Paul isn't going to change this.
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Tom Usher
Standing Comment, all posts and pages:
To all homosexuals and their supporters, condoners, promoters, accepters, confirmers, and the like:
Unless you have something completely new that hasn't already been refuted, don't bother. It won't show up.
Rehashing what has already been refuted is a waste of everyone's time.
I'm not interested in casting pearls before swine, giving the children's bread to the dogs, or rebuking a forever scorner.
Learn or go away: There is zero wisdom in homosexuality. Homosexuality is wrong. Nothing any homosexual or anyone else can say or do will alter it. No one needs the Bible to know it either. It's prima facie. There's no such thing as an unrepentant-homosexual Christian. There never has been and never will be. That's the way of it. If you don't like it, change.
Do site searches on the various topics concerning homosexuality to determine if your "point" has already been handled. Currently, I provide three different search methods. The "WordPress" search is still the most thorough.
The same can be done regarding militarism, capitalism, coercion, and many other main issues and themes.
TREATMENT, RUDENESS, POLITENESS, OFFENSE, TRUTH
Many times over the course of this website's existence, I've had commentators complain about how I've treated them and/or others. Much less frequently has anyone taken exception to those commentator's comments. I assume that's because for one, I appear to be holding my own.
Often, I have raised the fact that Jesus called certain people "serpents." I've often also mentioned how he cleaned the temple with whip in hand, not that he used it on anyone. It certainly doesn't say that he did, and neither was he charged with it in the kangaroo court of the serpents who ended up murdering him by proxy just for, among other wonderful things, speaking out and speaking truth.
If I say that those who are engaged in serpentine behavior are the New Testament "serpents," then why take offense at my saying it rather than standing with Jesus and me about it?
If others don't like it that I treat others or them the way I have in this regard, why don't they take it up with the serpents and/or their own consciences and God?
If I wanted to catch flies, I'd use honey. I don't want flies on this level. Human beings aren't to be on the level of flies. If the truth is bitter as vinegar, then ask yourself why and learn to taste it as sweet but not sickeningly so. Why attack the message and messenger, as the serpents did, and become a serpent by so doing?
The issue is not "name calling" on some bratty, childish level. When Jesus said "serpents," he was not being as a brat. His level was completely adult to adults and children. He dared say that the children understood the clear and plain truth before the adults who, afterall, had been abused and socialized by the serpents. He still calls adults back. Those who hear him and know his voice (truth) turn around and do the other required things together as well.
What is it for a human being to be more serpentine or reptilian than what God initially gave? What was and remains Jesus's point? What is the reptilian brain versus the vastly higher human brain with its cerebral cortex and frontal and temporal lobes and specific areas of altruistic sentiments and abilities? What are those higher areas before they are damaged, before the communication pathways to them and between them are diminished by evil that is always some form of abuse? How are those pathways reestablished or created where they never were in this fleshly life?
The snake lays its eggs. The eggs hatch. The snake parent doesn't nurture or raise the offspring. It's every snake for itself. Human parents and family are not designed to be that way. Humans hand down the learning of nurturing. Many people get better training than do others, and many people have a greater aptitude for learning and predisposition for the higher and highest virtues. Many are less abused. People can change for the better and best though, no matter where the starting point. They only can't if they don't — if they reject it.
Snakes, of course, also come in venomous varieties and in strangling varieties, etc., such that they have been attackers and even devourers of humans for eons, guilty and innocent alike.
Now, Jesus knew that most people could relate to what were, and still are, largely considered "good" parenting skills and "good" "family" relations. He regularly used those concepts to get people to consider the wider implications for the whole of humanity. He did know that many would refuse. He let them go. He didn't demand secular or false-religion legislation to rein them in with threats of violence and imprisonment. He was not and is not coercive. Even his Church is a voluntary place to be.
What he still teaches (through the written words in the New Testament and as those connect with the Old and also teaches through the Holy Spirit he definitely sent as he said he would) is, among many other things, that "good" is vastly better than has been commonly accepted and that real "family" is everyone left after all the rest have rejected the higher and highest good. He raised the standards far above the Old Testament and far above the "modern" standard.
The American Empire and the American people in general aren't even touching the hem of his garment, let alone even attempting to stand upright and side-by-side with him.
I point out that Jesus was, and is, a Real Liberal Christian. He is the one who brought back this censored truth that is the light. After he had spoken it and lived it and was murdered for doing so, the censors set about to re-censor it and did. They couldn't put it out though — couldn't completely extinguish the truth. I wouldn't be saying it now again with all credit to God, just as Jesus, if they had been able to completely block it.
I point out that each of those terms ("real," "liberal," and "Christian," along with "Church") are actually redundant terms — synonyms that are so close that they become one. The term "liberal" here is not the common usage, which common usage is a deliberate corruption of the term. There is no harm in real liberalism. There is no vileness in it. There is only beneficence. "Real" may be understood as the opposite of false-hearted, dark side, and dead of the Holy Spirit. Christian is both real and liberal in those senses. To arrive at living, doing, being those full senses requires what Jesus lives, does, and is in the highest. Finally, the Church is the whole.
Who are they who want to drag it down, censor it, work against it, lessen it, ignore it, etc.? Well, who sides with Jesus and who sides against him? Did the serpents side with him then? Do they now?
We call war-mongers "hawks." We call "peacemakers" blessed and "doves." Why do the hawks not take offense at "hawks" but do take offense at "serpents"? "Hawks" is not yet as telling to the general public, but I must tell you that all hawks are serpents. Why do some say, "Greed is good" but take offense at "serpents"? I tell you there is no difference between the selfish and the serpents. Why do people take offense at serpents when they do not take offense at homosexuality? I tell you the homosexual spirit also comes out from the dark side. It is a choice. It is harmful. Many are abused with it. Many never overcome it. Their very brain matter is transformed by it. Then they claim it is good when it remains confusion and definitely wrong and harmful.
Many arguments were put forth in support of tolerance. I understood that Jesus "tolerated," as in he did not execute wrath but rather told the truth and let the blind follow the blind (blind to the truth) into the ditch of their own making. I have watched while the movement has been corrupted into condoning what was once only to be tolerated. I have watched further while it has moved from condoning to promoting even to the youngest children to get to them before the truth does. I have seen evil at work, and I sound the alarm. I face censorship and other negative reactions for it.
As the American Empire claims to be a light to the world, it murders innocent babies by Hellfire missiles fired from predator drones controlled by armchair, video-gaming serpents in uniform. It tortures those who are not even suspects. It spies on its own without even probable cause or reasonable suspicion. It lies its way into wars for spoils and control. It neglects its poor, whom it treads down for the sakes of the superrich — for the sake of the massive flow of mammon from the bottom up (no trickledown — trickledown is a farce and always has been). All is claimed to be okay in America though — that America is headed in the right direction — because soon, even "don't tell, don't ask" will be a thing of the quaint past and homosexuals may be able to sleep together and have sex in the barracks with the "blessing" of the Empire while they practice murdering the innocent for the sake of homosexual, greedy plutocrats who own them and who, in turn, are owned by the dark-side spirit named by God and Jesus as Satan.
Whose side are you on? I speak truth to warn. I don't tell the secular government what to do other than occasionally to say what at least would be less hypocritical within their fallen, unenlightened system. I do so for spiritual reasons. What I want is the Christian Commons.
Now, if you submit a comment:
What you write here against the Real Liberal Christian Church founded by Jesus Christ will mark you in the Biblical sense unless you show that you have turned and are repenting in time to escape the damnation of your own choosing. That's the way of it. Don't be tempted by the devil to stand opposed to the call of righteousness. Overcome such evil temptation. Help others to help yet others to come to righteous behavior through-and-through.
Check out how even after reading this, people will still take it out of context and twist it to an evil end.