The Flame Blame

(C) Ed Hall, Not used by permission. I hope he forgives me. Heck, who’s reading this anyway?

“You might like my latest cartoon” came the message from my political cartoonist acquaintance. I’ve been following him for some time and while our politics rarely line up I at least appreciate his passion and willingness to push buttons and boundaries.

But this time he really pushed one of my buttons.

I’ve been standing on the sidelines and avoiding conversations about the wildfires in California. The few places I did comment with my knowledge and opinions didn’t seem to get anywhere. People have decided to look at the whole situation through whatever political worldview they have chosen for themselves. Even the wildland firefighter community on social media has collapsed into bomb lobbing and insult hurling.

Everyone wants to blame someone.

My cartoonist friend (and the environmentalists) want to blame climate change (and the Republicans). Yes, weather does play a major role in the spread of fire, and in the availability and moisture level of fuels. But just like you can’t blame an ice storm for car accidents, you can’t blame the climate for wildfires.

People are the cause of accidents, whether they be car crashes in an ice storm or devastating wildfires in a drought. The ice did not make the driver crash, the driver’s response to the icy road caused his accident. The climate did not create the devastation, the policies and practices of people in response to the climate created the devastation.

When Trump blamed the fires on lack of management he wasn’t entirely wrong. There is horrible management going on in many of the forests around the country. Much of that mismanagement is concentrated in the western states, particularly the three bordering the Pacific ocean.

Environmental groups, loggers, ranchers, and developers have been knocking heads in that part of the country for decades. The lobbyists for these parties have all gone to the Federal government to get their way in the land management game. Full fire suppression, a lack of timber thinning, a lack of controlled burning, and an explosion of building in the wildland interface are all polices and practices tied to these groups and their lobbying one way or another.

But just like you can’t blame the weather, you can’t blame mismanagement. Because mismanagement has a root.

Blame lies squarely on the concept of Federal ownership and management of land. The Federal government was not created to do such a thing and is not capable of doing it effectively.

Better put: land is best managed by the people who own it and live on it. Those are the people with real skin in the game.

When land belongs to everyone it becomes fodder for political ends. Public ownership means that I get to call the shots for land thousands of miles away from me. This is usually land I will probably never see, and ecosystems which I may never study or understand.

But locals know the land. Locals know what happens when you manage the forest one way or another. They live in it and derive their economic well-being from it. They have a vital interest in making the whole thing work. Mismanagement has direct and dire consequences upon them.

Ironically it is often these locals who lobby the Federal government to do what they wish because they don’t get along with the other locals. The ranchers don’t like the loggers, the loggers don’t get along with the recreation special interests, and no one gets along with the environmentalists. And no one gets along with the Fed either, because while trying to please everyone, the Fed enacts and carries out policies which please no one.

So while the ranchers are happy to have cheap (ie Federally subsidized) open range grazing land they are not happy with the fences the environmentalists want put up to protect the watershed. And the loggers are content to log land managed by their Fed friends but they are not happy with the ranchers for burning up timber while trying to improve grazing conditions. The environmentalists are happy to have a giant monopolized force machine to restrict all human action on nature but they are not happy with… well… anyone.

We should get the Federal government out of the business of land management and turn it all over to the locals. Let the local loggers and the local Hippies and the local ranchers sort it out amongst themselves.

At least then when it burns out of control we know who to blame.

If you like my blogs/paintings/photography, please like and follow me!

Follow me on Facebook!

Check out my Steemit page for more content.
Many of my images are available as prints on my Artpal page

 

If you like it, pass it on!

An AnCap Take on Voting

Voting… Every year it seems that we get a barrage of election mail and our medians and street corners are covered in ugly signs begging us to vote for this candidate or that, vote “no” on this, or vote “yes” on that. Every election is “the most important election we have ever seen”. The message that everyone should vote is drilled into our heads time and time again.

I just chuckle at all of this madness.

Due to travel I have not been able to vote in the past several elections. It wasn’t for lack of trying either. I applied for absentee ballots, but was informed that I had to have an address on file in my local precinct, something that had to be filed in person, at least a month before the election. So I gave up.

The whole situation got me thinking, can a consistent AnCap vote? I don’t believe in the monopoly of power that is government, what business do I have choosing who runs that monopoly? I don’t believe others have the right to select my master, why should I be a hypocrite and seek to choose theirs?

So I have decided I will not vote for candidates. It would be hypocritical for me to compel others to live under someone I have chosen but they have not consented to. I don’t want others to choose my king, why should I choose theirs?

However, given the chance, I don’t see how it’s hypocritical to vote on amendments and such, when one is voting in favor of more freedom. For example, Amendment 1 on the Florida ballot this year expands Florida’s property tax Homestead Exemption drops taxes on 60% of homesteaded properties (according to some sources). Number 2 keeps in place a limit on tax increases. Number 4 restores voting “rights” to felons who have not committed murder or sexual crimes. 5 is an amendment that would require a super majority for the legislature to raise taxes. These are no brainers.

The rest? Not so obvious. Florida has a fun way of blending several unrelated things into one amendment which makes it even more difficult for careful people to parse out their votes. One section of a proposal might sound great, but the rest is terrible. Or like 6 the amendment may have a ton of great ideas but then ending up striking down someone’s constitutional rights.

I may or may not get down to the polls this year. Life’s been crazy lately and it’s hard to get even time for myself, much less time for my “civic duty”. Plus it takes time to read through the amendments and not just rely on the opinions of others to make my decisions. So if I do, I will let you know how it goes.

If not, oh well.

If you like my blogs/paintings/photography, please like and follow me!

Follow me on Facebook!

Check out my Steemit page for more content.
Many of my images are available as prints on my Artpal page

Putting The “Justice” Into Social Justice

If you pay any attention to the modern world you’ll notice a buzzword floating around that might be a bit confusing for literalists like me. When I hear a term I pick apart it’s meaning just to be sure it’s being used correctly. Probably the most overused buzzword floating around right now is “social justice.”

Recently there was a meeting headed by John MacArthur to come up with a Christian response to the term. The group came up with a 14 part “Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel”. I plan on combing through it over the next few days and give a good summary of what I agree with and disagree with. From my initial scanning I will say I am not totally sold on it.

The more I research the term the more nebulous it’s meaning. Just like the term “toxic masculinity“, the definition of the term “social justice” seems dependent on one’s political beliefs.

What’s my definition of “social justice”?

The “social” part is not hard to understand and for the most part I think people use it correctly. It’s pretty hard not to. “Social” just refers to people. The term clearly refers to how we treat people.

The “justice” part is much harder to understand.

“Justice” is defined by the Google as: “just behavior or treatment”, “the quality of being fair and reasonable”, “the administration of the law” which is somewhat helpful, if we can define “just”, “fair”, and “reasonable.”

“Just” is defined as “based on or behaving according to what is morally right and fair” which seems clear right? It’s also defined as “(of treatment) deserved or appropriate in the circumstances.”

So who decides what is fair? Fairness is a rather subjective thing. “Deserved” is also a relative term, especially in this day and age of entitlement nonsense.

These definitions are pretty cut and dry when speaking in legal terms. When a civil violation or a criminal action takes place fairness and a deserved retribution can usually be pretty easy to parse out. In “Social Justice” however, fairness and deserts can mean just about anything.

That leaves us with “morally right” and “appropriate in the circumstances”.

As a Christian, I have a basis for the moral treatment of others in scripture: “Treat others as I would have them treat me” “Love my neighbor” and “love my enemy”. To be socially just I must take pains to ensure I am loving those around me. Add “appropriate to the circumstances” and this becomes a slightly more difficult task.

Social justice as a Christian requires a great amount of discernment and attention to individuals. We cannot approach the subject as the pagan world does with blanket platitudes and government programs. We have to be involved with individual members of all classes, races, genders, religions, and whatnot.

To be just we must know what our neighbor deserves (love, first and foremost) in their individual circumstances. We must treat our enemies with love, understanding that they may deserve different things than our family or neighbors (again, they deserve love, but tempered with caution).

Social justice is a silly term for Christians to use. We have had the golden rule for millenia, why use such a trendy buzzword?

I’m just going to keep on treating others with love and kindness.

If you like my blogs/paintings/photography, please like and follow me!

Follow me on Facebook!

Check out my Steemit page for more content.
Many of my images are available as prints on my Artpal page

Kavanaugh, That is All

You know, I don’t normally pay attention to politics anymore. Honestly, being an ancap, I really don’t have a horse in the game. I couldn’t care less what party is in power, as long as they all leave me alone. Nor do I really care if Brett Kavanaugh gets the seat on the Supreme Court.

That said, it’s history in the making so I was compelled to tune in to the hearings. Here are my thoughts, whatever they are worth to you:

1. What a s#*tshow. All the Republicans want to do is jabber on about how bad the Democrats are. All the Democrats want to do is ask the nominee a bunch of gotcha questions which have little to do with determining the validity of the accusations against him.
2. Judging by the media and social media mudslinging, due process is not really a thing any more in this country. If you’re a conservative, he’s not guilty and she’s a terrible monster. If you’re a liberal, he’s a monster and she’s a poor victim of literally the whole of society. No one really wants to go through the process of comparing allegations to witness accounts or evidence, we just go ahead and assume guilt one way or the other based on whether it fits our politics.
3. Personally, I’m going to agree with Kavanaugh on this: she was assaulted at some time in her life. Given the lack of witnesses or evidence against him, and given the positive statements about him and other evidence in his favor I don’t believe we can definitively say it was him who committed the assault.
4. If I have to make a call, I’m going to say the committee rules that the Senate vote proceed. And I’d bet he gets the seat. Mostly because of the slant of current politics though. If the Democrats had a complete majority in the Senate, he wouldn’t get the seat.

But then again, like I said, I don’t pay that much attention. I could be completely wrong about how this will turn out.

But the circus sure is fascinating.

If you like my blogs/paintings/photography, please like and follow me!

Follow me on Facebook!

Check out my Steemit page for more content.
Many of my images are available as prints on my Artpal page

 

Daily Thoughts #7

A whole week? Wow, I’m glad I could keep this up!

It’s the birthday of ‘Murica. I may not be a flag waving super statist, but I would consider myself a bit patriotic. Being a fan of the culture and spirit of a people is different from being a fan of a government. Being a Nationalist is different from being a patriot.

Our government has long ceased to be a government of, by, and for the people. It’s not hard to separate the populace from the beast.

I am rather happy to live in a place that has relatively less government interference than the rest of the world. So, happy birthday, America! Let’s work to reduce that interference even more in the coming year.

Radiator update: I’m just buying a new one. Why spend $30 on repair nonsense that may not work when you can get an entirely new radiator for $55?

Imperialism and Hobbes

Yes, I am bringing up Hobbes again. Since we have decided to drop bombs on Syria (again) it seems apt to point out that Hobbes would blame us all for the deaths of innocents abroad. In fact, Hobbes would also blame the Syrians themselves for whatever their dictator did. Come to think of it, in the world of Hobbes there are no innocents.

Over the past couple of days I have seen people saying that Trump voters have blood on their hands, only to be told that they, as non-voters, also have blood on their hands.

Isn’t it great to live in a world where no matter what you believe or do, you are “responsible” for the deaths of thousands and millions?

Thank you, Hobbes, for planting in our heads this ridiculous idea that just because we are born in a certain geographic region under a certain tyrant we are somehow not only subject to his whims but responsible for his sins. Thanks for giving us this preposterous idea that tyranny is legitimate as long as it is passed down successively under a set of rules laid down two hundred years ago.

Eleven Years

Source

Today marks eleven years since the shooting at Virginia Tech. Eleven years since my alma mater was rocked by what was then the deadliest mass shooting in American history.

In the past eleven years we have witnessed many more of these types of incidents. We have continued to blame guns, we have continued to blame mental illness, we have continued to blame “the system”, we have continued to blame violent media. We have blamed everything we can think of. We want to know “why”. Why do these things happen?

There isn’t really a simple answer to why these horrible incidents occur. Humans are sinful, we find ways to commit more and more heinous sins. We have been killing each other throughout history. So why the sudden uptick?

Is there really a sudden uptick? Are we really killing people now at a rate higher than any other time in history? Or is it simply more taboo? Is it simply more obvious in an age of 24 hour news and political commentary?

Governments kill millions of people. They always have been in the business of killing. They spend billions of dollars procured (by force) to invent new and more horrific ways to kill people. They spend millions more in propaganda to dehumanize those they consider “enemies.”

With so much murder being promoted by the “leaders” of the world, is it any wonder that so many in the ranks of society are more than willing to kill others for their own reasons? After all, the politicians are supposed to represent us. Doesn’t their violence simply reflect the violence of those they represent? Could it be that their “leadership” creates a world where killing other humans is perfectly acceptable as long as one can create a justification for it?

Perhaps if we want to create a peaceful society where killing people is not an option for those who feel “bullied” or neglected by others we should start at the top and stop killing people for not being a part of our “team”.

If we want to stop the indiscriminate killing of students in our high schools or colleges we should probably stop the indiscriminate killing of those who just happen to live in areas of the world ruled by jerks our government doesn’t like.

I don’t mean to downplay or dishonor the lives of the 32 killed that day in 2007. Those were innocent individuals. They had no reason to die. They should be honored, as all life should be.

All life should be honored because all life is sacred. That honoring of life should start at the top of society and work its way down through the ranks. If the leaders of this world honored life, how much more would those under that leadership value it?

Stop blaming guns, mental illness, systems, or media, start looking at your “leaders” instead.

Theonomy and Hobbes

It occurred to me while reading Hobbes that a Commonwealth could never form under Theonomic law. That is, natural man will never assent to be governed under God’s law. Natural man will always be at enmity with God and therefore always at enmity with the State claiming God as Sovereign. Natural man in a Theonomic Commonwealth would be in constant fear of legal execution, as he can always be considered treasonous towards the government of the territory he inhabits.

The Theonomic Commonwealth would be a nation of coercion and force. It would be a nation in constant civil war. The only men who can covenant with God are those who are in Christ. All other men are unable to make such a covenant and therefore would be enemies of God and the Theonomic Commonwealth. Such a State would result in innumerable false conversions and revolt against the Gospel itself.

Hobbes describes three types of Commonwealth: the Monarchy, the Democracy, and the Aristocracy. None of these are suitable for Theonomy.

In a monarchy one man is given all the authority of the people by those who covenant together to grant him authority. In Theonomy, God grants power to governments. Government is not created by man to keep peace, it is instead created by God to bear the sword and enact justice.

I have had Theonomists argue with me that government can take any form as long as it obeys the civil laws of the Old Testament. But in the case of a representative monarchy, who is the sovereign and who is the subject? In a Commonwealth, the sovereign is the representation of the people who covenanted together to be ruled by him. They are “the author of his actions”. Surely man is not the author of God’s actions. How would a king be chosen? If the king represented God and His law, would he not be unlike the Pope?

“God’s law would be the law of the land, much like the Constitution.” Again, natural man is opposed to God’s law. We would not of our own volition subject ourselves to it, nor would we elect representatives who would subject themselves to it. Democracies and aristocracies therefore wouldn’t fit the mold either, unless we suppose the entire nation to be saved.

From what I have read about both subjects, I don’t see how a Theonomy could operate as anything other than a theocratic dictatorship, with either a Pope-like “King” enforcing God’s law as he interprets it, or a counsel doing the same. Either way it ends up a violent police state and completely negates the reason man comes together to form governments in the first place.

Anarchy and Hobbes

Since I have free time now, I’ve been able to go back and re-read some of the books that influenced my political thinking. One of these books is “The World’s Great Thinkers, Man and The State”. It’s a compilation of political thought from Hobbes to Marx.

The contribution of Hobbes to this compilation comes from the second part of his work Leviathan:“Of Commonwealth”. In this treatise, Hobbes lays down the foundation on which the State is formed. Basically he argues that in order to live peaceably, natural man must come together in covenant and give up their individual rights to a sovereign who rules as their representative.

He gives a long list of rights to this sovereign, most of which are not rights which individuals have. This begs the question: “How can the sovereign representative be conferred rights which the individual man does not possess?”

The individual does not possess the right to levy taxes on his neighbors to pay for a road or the defense of his personal property. He does not possess the right to censor by force his neighbor’s thoughts and beliefs. He does not have the right to put his neighbor to death simply for disagreeing with him. How does he transfer rights which he does not have to his representation? Surely that representative should be restricted to the same limitations as those whom he represents.

Hobbes argues that natural man is in a perpetual state of war, which necessitates the formation of bodies politic to “keep (men) in awe, and to direct their actions to the common benefit.” It seems to me that he essentially gives to the sovereign the freedom to act as an exaggerated natural man, using violence and war to institute the “will of the people”.

The formation of Commonwealths does not relieve man of the problem of war, it merely elevates war. War is perpetual in the Commonwealth, as the sovereign must use violence and coercion to keep “peace” among the subjects.

Even if the original covenant was made voluntarily, as Hobbes describes it, it surely cannot be binding to future generations of those who did not personally assent to be subject to the sovereign in power. Force must be initiated to keep those subjects in line, force which is not in the rights of individuals to use.

While I concur with Hobbes that natural man is prone to violence, I disagree with the premise that natural man should bind together to give another natural man or group of natural men the authority to wage war for them. It seems predictably dangerous to do so. Concentrating the violent tendencies of natural men into one central power does nothing to end war, it just makes war a regional thing instead of a local matter between individuals.

I believe that a better state of being exists when individuals retain their own rights. Even Hobbes understands that man will cooperate in order to better his position in life. There is no reason to believe man has to centralize power into the hands of one man or group of men. Man cooperates just fine without the use of coercion or warfare.

Anarchy is not lawlessness. It is simply a lack of centralized force. Anarchy does not plunge us back into warfare as Hobbes contends. It places us back into the position we were in prior to forming commonwealths, that is, a state in which we may voluntarily cooperate and form whatever agreements we wish with our fellow men, without coercion.

From my reading, Hobbes makes a better case for why we shouldn’t form commonwealths than for why we should support them.

The Boys Came in Today

The boys came in today,

boats all came ashore,

Clamoring at the bar were they,

To tell me about the war.

 

Many were the tales they told,

Fighting for my liberty,

Fighting for our government,

Fighting for our country.

 

I listened to their stories,

About the deeds they did,

I looked them in the eyes,

and surprised them when I said,

 

“You’re fighting for your government,

Fighting for the State,

Fighting for the country,

Gee, isn’t that real great?

But this war’s not for me boys, this war’s not for me.

This war’s not for me boys, this war’s not for me.”

 

“Freedom is the default,

So is liberty,

Your government has swept in

to take it all from me.”

 

“So you’re fighting for the government,

You’re fighting for the State,

Fighting for your country,

Against those you’re told to hate.

But this war’s not for me boys, this war’s not for me,

This war’s not for me boys, this war’s not for me.”

 

2/3/2016