Public Choice
The bootleggers and baptists are up to their old games again. This time some other baptists are the whistle blowers.
World magazine (www.worldmag.com) is an evangelical weekly magazine, published in Asheville. They have brought to the evangelical community's awareness an interesting story.
Jack Abramoff, of the Indian Casino scandals, gave Ralph Reed, former Christian Coalition president and Religious Right poster boy, nearly a million dollars to influence pastors and their congregations into voting against a law that would legalize gambling in Texas. Abramoff's goal was to protect his clients' monopoly. Reed's motive was to prevent gambling... uh... and to get paid.
The interesting part that World brought out was that Reed asked Abramoff for more money and said that he could get Focus on the Family's James Dobson to speak out against the gambling law on his popular and influential radio show.
This caused something of a rift between World and Focus. A Focus VP got upset that Focus was implicated by World in the scandal and wrote a letter to the editor that World refused to publish, and then he read it on the air.
Focus' Dobson, and World's Editor, Marvin Olasky, have both managed to keep a cool head about the matter, both of them backing their own employees, but at the same time identifying the real source of the problem: Ralph Reed.
I hope that someday Christians will realize that legislating morality does not affect societal norms, but merely supports bootleggers. In other words, I hope that they will learn some economics. And I hope that economists will learn some ethics. And I hope that the law can be decontaminated.
Nathan
Read more about this at:(http://www.worldmag.com/articles/11489) original article in World.
and (http://www.worldmag.com/webextra/11574) World's explaination of the behind the scenes stuff between World and Focus, along with a list of checks received by Reed from Abramoff.
posted by Nathanael D Snow @ 8:51 AM
11 comments
11 Comments:
Yes. Please teach us in your ways....
You need to read:
Lysander Spooner's Vices are Not Crimes.
http://www.lysanderspooner.org
Ethics:
Do all you have agreed to do.
Do not encroach on other persons or their property.
Nathan
Hey, T. Greg Doucett had a piece that included bootleggers and baptists in the technician Monday. He's in Dr. Cordato's Wed. pm class, too.
Nathan
What constitutes encroachment?
Does it matter how property rights are allocated?
How is harmful behavior differentiated from non-harmful behavior. There are many cases where this gets to be a problem - like air, water, and other "public" resources.
I look forward to your tome on this subject.
If you make contradictory agreements you broke one or both of them. Retribution is in order.
If someone encroaches on another they are outside the law - an outlaw, if you will, and force is justified to protect private property. If the violated prefers, they may seek retribution for the encroachment.
Encroachment is any violation of person or property, real and ambient.
How property rights are allocated... haven't gotten that far yet!
Now, you know that I'm an something of an "Anarcho-Capitalist", so of course, there aren't any public goods. Silly.
The mechanism for all of this is of course, the courts. Common Law. We don't need a government, only courts.
Nathan
There are problems with the courts as well my friend. What if the common law turns coercive? What is a check on its power? Additionally, what individual or group of individuals enforce the decisions of the courts? Certainly it would have to be a coercive, powerful group -- police or Uncle Sam.
We can work all this out depending on where you want to live of course. If it is an anarcho-capitalism world, then read more Rothbard, David Friedman, and Patri Friedman. If you want to live in a world 'closer' to reality, I think all we can hope for is limited coercion. It's a thought.
I'm nowhere near reality, and that's the point. I don't advocate things that are "decent compromises," or those which are "workable." I advocate a higher ethic.
Nathan
I'm completely unreasonable about this.
Good, Good!
I much prefer unreasonable things, absurdities, and irr-reality
Participation in the courts would be voluntary. The alternative would be violence. Everybody should own guns. Government ought not to be concerned about... well, anybody. Especially not the disadvantaged, that's the territory of charities.
There ought not to be a coercive entity anywhere. And if there is one, it ought not to be manipulated.
I envision myself in Bonhoeffer's world particularly.
Nathan
Do you think people like Bonhoeffer only exist during times of war and extreme coercion?
What I mean is that when times are good, most people don't complain and it is simply to costly to speak out or assist with a regime change, or revolt or anything like that. I think those "bad" times are usually the only times we see people like that.
**Bonhoeffer was a lutheran minister who plotted to assassinate Hitler, was caught and hanged accordingly.**
Bonhoeffer also wrote several books. Two of which are "Life Together", and "The Cost of Discipleship." In these books he opens up a peculiar Christian Ethic, which I don't wish to impose on anyone, and neither did he.
These books were written well before he went to prison, or was under threat of imprisonment. It is this ethic and this world, to which I ascribe.
Nathan
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