The Responsible Libertarian

A Letter Concerning Entrepreneurship

The following is a letter I wrote to a dear friend of mine this week after he asked for my advice about leaving his current job to become an entrepreneur.  His name has been changed for the purpose of publication.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Dear John,

Since receiving your email, I have been thinking about your situation, and I thought that before we talked, I should express my general thoughts about entrepreneurship and your desire to declare your own personal independence from the machinations of the outside world.  Because that is what entrepreneurship is--it is a declaration that you no longer want to play other people's game.  You no longer want to abide by other people's rules.  There is no greater liberty available on this earth than the ability to eat by your own hand.  Little has changed in the course of 10,000 years of human history when it comes to this subject.  Most people in the world, the vast majority, really, are still serfs.  Even in the United States and Western Europe.  The only thing that separates Industrialized Civilization from Pre-Industrial Civilization is the quality of life of the serfs, not their proportion of society.

You have decided in your heart, by the mere mention of your desire, to make this declaration of independence.  It is laudable, for it is evidence of the highest form of character, the character of a man who has determined to be self-reliant, whatever the cost.  At a certain level, you have known for a long time this is what you wanted to do, but like all of us at one point, you held reservations about making the step and pulling the ripcord.  The question you face today is: what do you do now?

My advice stems from the things I learned the hard way, as nobody warned me of the world I was about to enter when I left the comforts and securities of my Northwest Arkansas town, where, despite all its ills, I was above all else, safe.  I did not even know the extent to which I was so safe there until long after I had left.  For many months I even carried with me the same sense of security.  Eventually I realized it had vanished, and it was painful.  

One of the most exhilarating aspects of living and working only for yourself is that life is an everyday roller coaster.  There is never a dull moment, and certainly no monotony.  This, I imagine, will be in sharp contrast to what you have grown accustomed to.  If you do not suffer from periods of depression, you will be one of the lucky few.  If you do not wake up on many mornings wondering if you can stretch that last $100 dollars far enough until something happens, then you will be the anomaly.    You will begin to lose track of time in life.  The work day will no longer be the work day.  It will be 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  You will have to budget your own time, but for once, you will be the final decision maker on that budget.  When you hit your first wave of success, you will think and feel like it is going to last forever.   It won't.  The first time success turns to frustration will not only be puzzling, it will be depressing.  There may be days you don't feel like getting out of bed because there seems to be nothing positive on the horizon.  Get out of bed early on those days and make something positive, or else spend the entire day with a pen and paper until you convince yourself to stop being depressed.  Nobody else can do it for you.

There are two quotes about success and failure that have impacted me more than any other, and have shaped my attitude about my entrepreneurial life.  One is from Kipling, from his poem If. He says 

If you can dream and not make dreams your master,

If you can think, and not make thoughts your aim,

If you can meet with triumph and disaster,

And treat those two impostors just the same.

The other quote is from St. Thomas Aquinas's "Prayer for Ordering a Life Wisely," to wit:

Grant to me, O Lord my God,

that I may not falter in times of prosperity or adversity,

so that I may not be exalted in the former, nor dejected in the latter.

In the world of entrepreneurship, winning means merely surviving.  Because if you survive, you will have beaten out 99% of the other people who get into this world.  Napoleon said "The battlefield is a scene of chaos.  The victor is the man who controls that chaos, both his own and his enemy's."  No quote could be more apt about being an entrepreneur.  You have the luxury of changing your business model any day of the week, some weeks you will have to change it every day.  You will become the most agile, adaptable person you know.  Because if you don't, you will likely be broke.  You'll likely be broke a lot of the time anyway, but don't let that scare you either.  Being broke isn't as bad as you might think.  The Stoics used to teach that its adherents should spend some time every month living on the street, as if they were completely destitute so they would learn not to fear poverty.  They would get out and realize "is this really what I was afraid of?"  Never operate out of fear.  Fear is a silly thing.  At the end of the day, what is the worst that can happen to you that hasn't happened to millions of people before you?  Nothing.  Simply looking at life's little bell curve, the chances of you suffering anything worse than the average of all people past and present are very low.  This is good perspective to keep.

There are many books you could about entrepreneurship, many books of hyper-encouragement.  I don't recommend them.  There are three books I do recommend, though.  The Art of the Start, by Guy Kawasaki.  The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham.  The Blue Ocean Strategy by Kim & Maubourgne.  Read Kawasaki's book at least 3 times.  Journal about it, think about it, absorb it.  It is the most practical, concise, and no-bullshit book about business I have ever read.  I hate 95% of business books I read.  I love less than 1%.  It is in that tiny minority.  The other two books, combined with your economics knowledge will help inform and instruct what to do with your entrepreneurship.  Always put your time and money in something of value, preferably at a discount to that thing's true value (the bottom line of Ben Graham), and always look for undefended hills rather than superior ways of taking hills that are heavily guarded (the bottom line of Blue Ocean Strategy).  Remember the lesson of Austrian Economics, too: the economy grows by the increase in the division of labor.  Economic growth simply means more value in the economy.  Increase the division of labor, however slightly, and you will find a profitable enterprise.  

I have some specific ideas on these subjects, as well, but I will reserve them for our phone conversation.  

You are about to embark on a life-long adventure.  The money ends up being icing.  The adventure is the cake.  I will do everything I can to help you and encourage you along the way.  Longfellow, in his poem A Psalm of Life, wrote,

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,

Life is but an empty dream!

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

Is our destined end or way;

But to act, that each to-morrow

Finds us farther than today.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,

Still, like muffled drums are beating

Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,

In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!

Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!

Let the dead Past bury its dead!

Act, Act in the living Present,

Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints that perhaps another,

Sailing o'er life's solemn main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us then be up and doing, 

With a heart for any fate;

Still achieving, still pursuing, 

Learn to labor, and to wait.

==

Entrepreneurs are people who change the world.  All of the other people are merely extras on the stage.  The politicians and generals do not meaningfully change the world.  They only disrupt it.  But the people who wake up every morning to innovate their way to a profit, they are the people who invented flight, the internal combustion engine, the computer, the cell phone, and so many other countless things that have permanently and forever changed the world.  It is a privilege and an honor to be in that great company of doers.  Welcome to the club.

Most Sincerely,

Skinner

The Maundy Revolution

Today is Maundy Thursday, the day of the New Mandate. Perhaps the most under-appreciated day in the Christian Calendar, it is simultaneously perhaps the most important for the contemporary Christian to understand. Maundy Thursday is our context, our lens, through which we must interpret and comprehend Good Friday and Easter. Indeed, Good Friday and Easter would be altogether different in meaning had there been no Maundy Thursday. 

For the Apostolic Christian, Maundy Thursday's significance is evident--it was the night in which Christ instituted the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, the linchpin of traditional Christian worship. But something far greater happened on Maundy Thursday, something far more revolutionary. If Christianity is not now to enter another dark period of oppression, hate, and violence, we must take part in a modern-day Maundy Revolution. It is the solution to our political and economic problems, it is the only hope Christian people have for living in a free world. The Maundy Revolution has two stages: Service and Love.

"When [Jesus] had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them. "You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them." (John 13:12-17)

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." (John 13:34)

We are to serve and love each other as Christ served and loved us, and as he set the example of service by washing his disciples' feet. Fealty was itself put to death on Maundy Thursday. The whole world is turned on its head by these commandments to serve and love. The survival of the fittest, "strong vs. the weak" world was commanded to give way to a world of mutual love, mutual respect, and mutual service. 

It is intentional, it would seem, that the commandment to serve (and the example of it) precede the commandment to love. Love is service plus. Love is a selfless, volitional desire for the growth and fulfillment of another person. We can serve without loving, but we cannot love without serving. Perhaps the reason we are commanded to serve first is that through service to others, we learn how to love others. 

But it must start with a desire that is rooted in the love of God. It cannot be forced, it cannot be mandated by law. These things only pervert Christ's commandments. There can be no merit in forced morality, and there is nothing revolutionary about service at gun-point.

The commandment was not to tear down old hierarchies and build up new ones in their place, nor to simply create a more democratic method of master-selection. The commandment was not to establish a punishment mechanism for those who didn't comply or establish a certain class of people to police everybody else. The Maundy Revolution was without exception, without caveat, and without footnote: Serve and Love.

In this light, we see that Good Friday was the carrying out of the Maundy Revolution, Christ, as he always did, led by example. Good Friday was the first case study in the Maundy Revolution, the evidence of how far the commandments to Serve and Love were to extend. If there were a catechismic question "How far are we to Serve and Love our neighbor?" the answer would be "We are to Serve and Love our neighbor as Christ Served and Loved us, even unto suffering, anguish, and death."

For much of the history of Christ's church, the church not only abjectly failed in these two commandments, these commandments did not even make it onto the list of the church's goals. After Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire by Constantine, the church no longer needed Jesus. The church had the Roman military, then the militaries of every successive regime in Europe. 

Who needs love when you have sword, crossbow, and musket?

The Reformation was a turning point, but for all practical purposes its immediate effects were simply to change who could claim God for their own political ends. The protestant monarchs were liberated from the need for the Pope's blessing to use Jesus as a battle axe. And so, for centuries more, people were kept in church by threat of death, hell, or both.

The ongoing demise of Christendom is the entry point for the Maundy Revolution. The 21st Century Church will not be built on catechisms, creeds, or encyclicals. It will not be built on Parliaments, Congresses, Laws, or Judicial Opinions, either. The Second Coming will not be founded upon a Constitutional Amendment to outlaw abortion or a confiscatory tax for universal health care.

Maundy Thursday must revolutionize all of our human relationships, all of the dichotomies of human behavior. Employer-employee, neighbor-neighbor, father-son, teacher-student, king-peasant, voter-elected official, citizen-bureaucrat. We must all heed Christ's command to Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane, "Put your sword in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword."

If there is to be a thriving 21st Century Christianity, it will be built on the Maundy Revolution: Service and Love. Voluntarily, willingly, cooperatively, humanely. 

O Lord our heavenly Father, whose blessed Son came not to be ministered unto but to minister: Bless, we beseech thee, all who, following in his steps, give themselves to the service of others; that with wisdom, patience, and courage, they may minister in his name to the suffering, the friendless, and the needy; for the love of him who laid down his life for us, the same thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

The Viagra Economy

There is a relatively common abuse of the prescription drug Viagra, known for its capacity to help solve erectile disfunction.  The abuse takes place among perfectly normal, healthy, and generally young men who are capable of getting an erection all on their own.  They buy these pills on the black market for $30 a piece, and that buys them what they think will be a night-long hard-on that will ameliorate the effects of the rather vulgarly termed sexual performance problem associated with heavy drinking known as "whiskey dick."  Perhaps these young men do not realize that cleaning up their lifestyle (by avoiding things like heavy alcohol consumption) could improve both their sexual performance and their sexual satisfaction.  

But more importantly, it seems that they do not consider the long-term side-effects of constantly being over-stimulated.  When these 20 year old frat boys turn 30, will they even be able to perform without the little blue pill?  And by the time they are 40, will the little blue pill even be enough?

Fortunately, those questions must be answered by the people who are irresponsibly consuming them.  But for the rest of us, we must realize that our present economic circumstances are little different.  The little blue pill is being offered--nay, forced upon us by the elites in Washington and New York.  We must take this stimulant or we will perish, they say.  The problem is that we have been taking the little blue pill voluntarily for years--going back to the early 1980s, really.  

The 80s had their hiccup from too much money--the Savings & Loan bust that bankrupted many a nefarious banking charlatan. The 90s tech bubble had its hiccup, which was followed by the financial markets' significantly negative reaction to 9/11.  Each time the crisis was solved by pumping more fiat money into the system and through government "stimulus" packages.  In the 80s, it was primarily tax cuts.  The first term of the Bush II administration saw massive increases in government spending on entitlement programs and other supposed stimulants, accompanied by tax cuts that carried with them a ticking time bomb called a sunset provision.  Each crisis also saw massive increases in regulation, and each successive crisis required a larger government response to have any effect at all.

This is the Viagra economy.  What happens when the little blue pill stops working?  

We're about to find out.

Last week, the financial press reported a massive spike in wholesale inflation.  Inflation, you ask?  But hasn't everybody been screaming about DEflation?  This is more proof of the wisdom of not following the crowd when it comes to money matters.  If you think this is just a blip on the radar, then consider this: The adjusted monetary base sits at more than double its level last year.  Last month, for the first time since the crisis began, the Money Multiplier began to increase, and has risen above 1.

That means that the extra Trillion Dollars the banks have been holding on reserve at the Fed are starting to trickle into the system.  With the government taking over Citi and Bank of America (or even the pseudo-takeovers being discussed in the press today), you can be guaranteed that they are going to start lending again (because the elites in Washington only know one solution to economic problems: inflation).  It's time to reinflate the bubble.

The American people shouldn't be buying it.  There will just be more heartache and poverty right over the horizon.  The current powers that be just hope that it doesn't take hold until after the 2012 elections.  

Europe is on the verge of a total collapse.  Last week's news let us in on the dirty little secret that the European banks are worse off that their American counterparts.  The article was scrubbed of the fact in its original publication that the European banks have $24 Trillion in bad assets.  If you use Safari or Firefox, you can still see that in the browser headline on the link above.  This thing is about to get much worse, and eventually the stimuli will stop working.  It will take more and more and more until we just can't get it up anymore.  That will be the day of hyperinflation and the collapse of confidence in the dollar.  It will soon be abandoned and its value will plummet.  

You better be buying gold, or else investing in a country whose balance sheets look like gold compared to America and Europe.  I recommend Chile.

Happy Führer's Day (Part I)

Today is the day each year when America indulges itself in a bit of Orwellianism and reflects on the grand history of "liberty" in the United States by celebrating its greatest "defenders."  (One must either have a good sense of humor to endure this sort of language or else be content being depressed about it).  So on this "President's Day" of 2009, I thought it would be a nice change to reflect on the specific acts of defending liberty that each of our Presidents can be credited for.  In order to be as comprehensive as possible, we will take as many days as needed to chronicle the most egregious abuses of power of each of our 44 Presidents.

1.  George Washington:  Mr. Washington can be lauded for stepping down from the Presidency after two terms, and for refusing to be crowned King, but even the Primus Inter Pares of America's Founding Father's was not guiltless during his reign.

• Washington supported the imposition of massive taxes on alcoholic spirits to aid in Alexander Hamilton's imperialist endeavors to assert broad authority over the states and to finance the creation of a massive army and navy.
• When the people of Pennsylvania rebelled against the tax, Washington supported Alexander Hamilton's unconstitutional idea of waging war against the rebels, declaring a state of martial law in Pennyslvania and turning the state's militia against its own people in order to solidify Federal authority. 
• Although the rebels themselves could not be found, Washington and Hamilton made an example out of 20 prisoners, several of whom died in jail never having had a trial, and others who were put to death by hanging for "treason" (apparently farmers who could barely make ends meet without the income derived from turning their excess grain into alcohol were viciously evil sorts who deserved such punishment........not.)   
• Washington signed the law establishing the First Bank of the United States (completely without constitutional authority to do so) acquiescing to Hamilton's grand plans to make his financial industry friends in New York the wealthy and powerful elite that they continue to be to this day--at the expense of everybody else. 

2.  John Adams: Following in Washington's footsteps, Adams proved himself the 2nd American President to become the stooge of Alexander Hamilton and the Northern Mercantilists who sought to create an unconstitutional American Empire for their own wealth and personal glory.  Apparently a man with a short memory, Adams would find himself enacting laws that might have been been too totalitarian for King George himself.

• The Alien Friends Act authorized the president of the United States to deport any non-citizen residing in the United States who might be considered "dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States."
• The Alien Enemies Act authorized the president to deport any non-citizen whose country of citizenship is at war with the United States--a law that is still in effect today. 
• The Sedition Act, the most Freedom-loving of all, made it criminal to publish "false, scandalous, and malicious writing" against the U.S. government or its officials.  The First Amendment apparently hadn't taken effect yet. 

3.  Thomas Jefferson:  Although Jefferson is to be commended for repealing the Alien Friends Act and the Sedition Act, and for pardoning many of the people who were unjustly prosecuted by the Federal Government under those unconstitutional laws, and moreover, rightly scrapped the US navy and other machinery of war created by the Hamiltonians, Jefferson is not without significant short-comings either.

• Against his own principles of limited government and belief that the US government should not incur debt, he borrowed money to finance the Louisiana Purchase from the French.
• Jefferson dispatched the United States Marines to North Africa in an undeclared war against the Barbary "pirates."  The US forces failed and were mostly destroyed by the Barbary shipmen, but the war was given the Orwellian decoration of "victory" when Jefferson agreed to a $60,000 bribe to end the war and save face. 
• The Embargo Acts, however, were the most egregious of all of Jefferson's unconstitutional and anti-liberty policies.  Among other things, the Embargo Acts...      
  • Prohibited any American vessels from landing in any foreign port unless expressly approved of by the President himself.
  • Required all vessels to post a bond of guarantee equal to the value of the ship plus cargo in order to ensure compliance with the law.  
  • Further iterations of the law doubled the bond required, and included even fishing and whaling vessels operating domestically. 
  • Authorized the confiscation of ships and cargo not in compliance with the statute. 
  • Eventually banned the export of ANY goods by LAND OR SEA.  
  • Enhanced penalties to $10,000 plus confiscation of goods, for each offense. (For historical reference, it is important to note that $10,000 in the early 1800s, when adjusted to reflect Relative Share of GDP, it would equate to a $223 Million fine in today's terms) 
  • The President was given broad authority to grant special exceptions to the embargo as he saw fit.   

4.  James Madison: A proponent of limited government at the Constitutional Convention, and the most ardent supporter of separation of powers and federalism in his defense of the proposed Constitution, Madison's presidency is characterized by typical hypocrisy of any politician.  

• The War of 1812: Madison almost risked the existence of the United States by belligerently coaxing the new republic into another war with the British Empire. 
• Finding his new warfare state difficult to maintain without a national bank, he supported the unconstitutional rechartering of the Bank of the United States in order to finance his war.

(It is worth noting that of the early Presidents, Madison was one of the least egregious, vetoing legislation on states' rights grounds, and rejecting much of the Hamiltonians' domestic policy platform)

Stay tuned for Part II. 

Chinese Handcuffs and the Equity Alternative

The Chinese technocrats have come to realize that as brilliantly as their trade surplus scheme has worked over the last 20 years, there is indeed a downside, and that downside has become virtually inescapable for them.  We all played with those flimsy wooden contraptions when we were children--the harder you tried to pull your fingers out to escape, the more trapped you became.

The Chinese recognize their conundrum now, although they won't admit this blatantly.  The U.S. Treasury can momentarily breathe a sigh of relief that their greatest fear won't come true quite yet.  Yes, the Chinese have announced that as much as they hate to do it, they will continue buying US Treasuries.  To hear the Chinese technocrats tell it, China has only one option for all of its trade surplus funds, and that's American government debt.  In the Financial Times article, Luo Ping, a member of the Chinese Banking Regulatory Commission, gold, UK Bonds, and Japanese Bonds offer no alternative to American debt.  As he puts it, there is no other safe haven, even though they recognize that the dollar is going to significantly lose its value as American runs astronomical deficits to attempt to "stimulate" the economy (I wonder if drug rehab doctors prescribe stimulants for coke addicts...but that's another discussion).

This means that the dollar's collapse will not likely happen next week.  It will be a miserable, slow decline for the next year or two at least, before the real plummet begins.  But Treasury Secretary Geithner shouldn't have a good night's sleep because of it.  The US trade deficit fell yet again to its lowest levels since 2003 according to data released yesterday.  This trend is likely to continue for some time.  The reality is that market forces do press toward equilibrium, including in the trade markets. The consumer recession in the United States is definitely dampening imports, particularly from China.  

How Trade Deficits Have Fueled America's Debt-based Economic Boom

The dirty little secret of the trade deficit is that although politicians publicly denounce it, and extol the virtues (real and imagined...heavy emphasis on imagined) of American industry, the trade deficit has been an essential element of America's debt-fueled economic boom and the government's fiscal orgy. America's trading partners, like China, have recycled their American trade surpluses into dollars by purchasing U.S. Treasuries.  This has consistently alleviated pressure on the domestic market's ability to absorb government debt, which otherwise would have massively crowded out business spending and investment.  With shrinking trade surpluses, China will have less capital to put into Treasuries, meaning that Secretary Geithner is going to have to find somebody else to buy the bonds of a government that is now hemorrhaging money at an unprecedented pace.  Failure to do so will drive interest rates through the roof, destroying any potential recovery that might have otherwise been fostered by the creation of $1 Trillion of new fiat money over the last 18 months by the Fed.

The Myth of "No Other Options"

The Chinese government may say there are no other options, and certainly many American investors have even come to the same conclusion.  But that is because most people with incredible sums of money do not want to work to keep that money.  The banking system of the 20th Century enabled wealthy people (and governments) to eat, drink, and be merry.  If you have a billion dollars, then modest interest rates mean that you can comfortably $50 Million each year by doing absolutely nothing. Who wouldn't want that life?

This is because most wealth people (and governments) do not want to become capitalists, that is, they do not want to become entrepreneur.  In spite of the wretched reputation that the term "capitalist" has earned over the years, the reality is that much of that disdain has been largely misapplied.  Insofar as words mean anything, "capitalist" ought to apply to somebody who utilizes capital in order to produce an increase in the division of labor, and as a result of this endeavor, returns a profit for the efforts.  Most wealthy people would prefer not to be capitalists.  They would prefer to let somebody else loan out the money--or better yet, deposit their money to earn interest on debt owed by an entity that will never default on the debt (the U.S. government).  

In the case of the Chinese government, they have several other viable options.  The first, and most ethical option, would be return all of their surpluses to the Chinese people in the form of a tax rebate.  This is money that was, after all, earned by the Chinese people and stolen from them by their government.  The most egalitarian and "communist" thing to do would be to give it all back.  But of course they won't do this, because communism (and especially Chinese pseudo-communism) is anything but egalitarian in practice.  The only difference between communism and fascism is which group of people gets to be the privileged class.  

In America (fascism) it is the bankers, financiers, and industrialists who are on the take from the U.S. government (Ford, GM, GE, Boeing, Halliburton, Lockheed, Raytheon, etc.).  A few real entrepreneurs get to be rich, too (Gates, Buffett, the Google guys, Jeff Bezos), but those people don't wield much power in the political world compared to the heads of Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Halliburton, etc.  In China (pseudo-communism) it is the bureaucrats, and heads of State-run enterprises who hold the privileged positions. This is ultimately a distinction without a difference.

In both systems, the average, middle class person, always gets hosed at the expense of the rich and/or the powerful.  This has more or less been true in every civilization since the beginning of time.  

That is because nobody has ever experimented with a stateless society.  Only when coercion ceases being justified by the contrivance of the State can a fairness and equality ever be achieved.  That is the point when people are judged and rewarded based upon their merits, rather than upon what "value" they serve for the collective.  This is ultimately the problem with communitarian philosophies, both fascist, communist, and their variants: while claiming that they care about individuals, individuals are ultimately subservient to the idol of "the greater good."  This is the paradox of communitarian philosophy, as the greater good is ultimately achieved when individuals are free to strive in pursuit of self-actualization, a process that is decimated by utilizing the state to attempt to help some people pursue this using the resources of others.

The Chinese government is, although not an orthodox communist regime, a communitarian regime to the core.  Consequently, there is little likelihood that it will pursue any form pro-individual policy with its excess reserves and will prefer to see them waste away through dollar devaluation than to return the funds, in yuan, back to the Chinese people.  

The other alternative for the Chinese government (a strategy also viable for anybody else with capital that they do not want to see decimated by dollar devaluation) is to become a capitalist--that is, to invest in capital goods that contribute to the increase in the division of labor.  Since governments are not terribly good at running businesses, China could follow the Chilean model with its CORFO fund.  CORFO invests in viable businesses as a limited partner, with the purpose not of earning an outsized return, but helping businesses grow through EQUITY, rather than DEBT capital.  

This further exposes the fatal fallacy in the logic of Secretary Geithner, Chairman Bernanke, and others in the financial elite.  They claim that the economy cannot grow if credit is unavailable.  This shows not only their bias toward the preservation of the banking oligarchs, but also their short-sightedness and ignorance of sound economic growth principles.  People with capital should not lend it.  They should become equity investors--that is, they should become capitalists.  Either they should be capitalists who are also entrepreneurs, or they should be capitalists who support entrepreneurs.  Equity investment is the alternative to credit markets.  

Of course for this to be a real viability, the SEC would have to get off the backs of the average person who wants to open a small business, but can't raise equity because the laws are so cumbersome, convoluted, and dangerous.  The SEC exists as yet another structure designed to prop up commercial banking establishments and the financial oligarchy whose capital is in New York City.  By making equity investments potentially fatal for the entrepreneur, most people turn to the credit markets to establish and grow their businesses, forever sustaining the banking establishments, and making all Americans the pawns of banking executives.

This cycle can only be broken through the deliberate action of millions of Americans who reject the banking establishment, government Treasuries, and ultimately the dollar itself.  If you really want to preserve freedom, become an equity investor overseas or a metals investor.  Take your money out of the banks.  Let the Chinese prop up the dollar while you have the opportunity to get out before it is too late.  The market can non-violently stage a coup against the established financial order, but people must be willing to bear new risks.  Don't be lulled into thinking that you bear no risks now.  They are just different ones--like watching your life's savings and even your productivity today ruined by the fraud committed by the Federal Reserve every time it creates a new Billion dollars out of thin air, or every time Congress borrows against your future earnings, and the earnings of your children and grandchildren.  

You can make a difference, no matter who controls Congress or the White House.  But you must change your behavior to make it happen.  Indeed, we must all make these changes if we are to survive our own government and its boondoggles.

"How Could This Happen?" Or: On the Density of Senators

"Suppose you were an idiot.  Now suppose you were a member of Congress.  But I repeat myself." --Mark Twain

Perhaps given Twain's cynicism, I should find myself less surprised when our elected representatives display the twin traits of stupidity and audacity.  Yet they seem to reach new lows on a daily basis.  If you like to live in a world where you believe in the workings of democracy, then you should never watch C-SPAN, and you should especially never read the transcripts of committee hearings.  The real stupidity takes place in committee hearings.  

This week, some of America's finest Senators grilled regulators from the SEC and FINRA on the Madoff scandal.  Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Bob Menendez (D-NJ) were outraged and befuddled that the almighty regulators failed the catch on to Bernie Madoff's swindling sooner (If the old saying "it takes one to know one" is true, then perhaps Chris Dodd could enjoy a fine career trying to catch crooks and swindlers).  

Menendez, for one, declared "I am troubled by the sheer magnitude of the warning that the SEC received," then asking if perhaps Madoff was smarter than the regulators.  The correct answer is: Yes.  And the Madoffs of the world will always be smarter than the regulators.  Just like the terrorists will always be smarter than the CIA and the NSA.  The parallels between the rhetoric on Capitol Hill during the financial crisis and in the aftermath of 9/11 are rather staggering.  The same sort of language is used by Senators to inquire as to why government officials "didn't see it coming," or why they "ignored obvious signs."  

The parallels go even further.

Dodd, questioning the CEO of FINRA (the Financial Industry's self-appointed regulatory body but which garners much of its authority from federal securities regulations) responded to the CEO's assertion that FINRA could not investigate Madoff because its regulatory mandate extended only to oversight of broker-dealers and that the Madoff fraud took place in his investment advisory arm, saying "The idea that FINRA would not explore further the issues at the Madoff firm, really because they felt there was a wall drawn is inexcusable."  

Shocking, indeed, that somebody might think that it is not appropriate to go snooping in somebody's business when one does not have the right to do so.  This logic is of course foreign to Dodd and others on Capitol Hill who have made a career of snooping in other people's business when they have no right to do so.  But the audacity to say such things is perhaps the most appalling.  

Let us not forget that the CEO of FINRA before the current one happens to now be Obama's hand-picked head of the SEC.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

But here is really the most important question of the day: how do Senators (like Dodd) who have been around DC for a while not recognize the pattern that no matter how well-funded a government agency is, and no matter how much legislation they have to empower them, they still miss all of the "big ones" whether in matters of national security or in finance?  When will they realize that the government is just incapable of preventing suffering?

My thought is that it's not likely to happen as long as we have elections and as long as there are benefits to be in public office.  But in the meantime, we should heap as much ridicule on the incompetents that are running the show, with the hopes that perhaps the American people at-large will wake up and realize that government is not only not a panacea, but is a false messiah that steals our liberty and makes our lives worse.

Bring the Troops Home...From Afghanistan

The War Party wants another troop surge--oh, I mean the other War Party.  Let us not forget that the Democrats presided over World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the majority of the Vietnam War.  The contemporary pacifism of the Democrats is not as widespread as Sean Hannity might have you think (not that Sean Hannity really cares about people thinking).  Sure, George McGovern has his following, and quite frankly, we'd be a lot better off it it were the dominant influence.  The other wing of the Democratic Party, the wing currently in command of the White House and Congress, is not a "war is principally wrong" group of folks, but rather a "war is to be used to achieve specific diplomatic ends" group of folks.

What has changed in Washington, with respect to foreign policy, is not principles or ideals, but goals and tactics.  The Bush Administration's goal (at least its latter goal) was democracy in Iraq.  The Obama Administration's goal is appeasing Europe and Pakistan while trying to convince a skeptical electorate that Barack will be tough on terrorism. They both see war as the primary means to achieve those ends.  The suggestion of a surge of troops in Afghanistan is quite politically motivated.  

The shift of attention toward Afghanistan is largely to help mask the fact that all of the troops will not be coming home from Iraq any time soon.  But people will stop thinking about Iraq once they hear about "troop draw downs" which in practice will merely be redeployments a few ticks east to Afghanistan.  The media will go along willingly and compliantly because that is what they are supposed to do now that Obama is in office.  We will probably not be treated to daily body bag reports from Afghanistan--such gratuitous reporting would not serve the Obama administration's goals.  I for one hope somebody keeps publishing this information, as the American public has a right to know.

But this policy shift to Afghanistan is not going to eliminate terrorism.  It isn't even going to stabilize Afghanistan.  Actually, it will have the opposite effect there.  The reason the war in Afghanistan was so successful was that it was a highly agile force, made up of very few ground troops and a lot of air strikes, that drove the Taliban out of Kabul.  The British and the Russians tried occupying Afghanistan with large numbers of troops.  The Germans tried tricking and bribing the Emir of Afghanistan to aid them in their efforts to destabilize British India during World War I.  All of them failed.  The British twice, the Russians twice, and the Germans never even made it in the front door.  

It is not called the graveyard of empires for nothing.

But I do not suspect we will hear the word "quagmire" uttered by the lips of Ted Kennedy or on the front page and top of the fold Editorial sections of the New York Times.  These were not principled opponents of war and violence, but political opportunists trying to throw elections.

We can only hope that the truly principled opponents of war and advocates of peace will keep yelling. We must end the War in Afghanistan as quickly as we end the War in Iraq, if not faster.  We must begin dismantling our military empire around the globe.  It is not only costly, but it compounds our need for the structure itself.  More military presence begets the need for more military presence.  This is not the peaceful republic of commerce and good-will that Washington yearned for.  It is the base, vile fruit of the Military-Industrial Complex that Eisenhower warned us of (Actually, Eisenhower wanted to call it the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex, but his advisors made him edit the last one out). 

The troop surge in Afghanistan will not have the apparent levels of success that the Iraq surge did because Afghanistan was not invaded in the same manner that Iraq was.  The Iraqi invasion began with the intent to occupy.  Afghanistan never did.  Afghanistan has still not been "occupied."  Once it is, the Afghani people will be ready to rid itself of the foreign devils.  It will not be pretty.

But that isn't even the point.  The point is the ultimately, terrorists will run, and we cannot kill all of the terrorists (even if that were a desirable goal, which I would argue it is not).  There will be more and more growing exponentially as Western invasion continues to offend the people who otherwise would have been content to mind their own business.  Afghanistan is going to play out like a set of Chinese handcuffs.  The harder we try, the worse it will get.  This irony may beyond the level of comprehension of our enlightened leadership.  

In the meantime, peaceful people everywhere should demand that the troops come home.  Not because it is too expensive (though it is), and not because we don't want to lose any more of our own soldiers (even though this alone is a rightful motivation), but because if we are to be the moral leaders of the world, we must behave morally.  And there is nothing moral about violence and coercion--even if somebody else started it.

How eBay Can Save the World

Avid sports fans would be among the first to recognize the inherent problems in having a football game officiated by somebody who had only ever watched basketball, or vice versa, and nobody would even consider having MIlls Lane call strikes behind home plate at the world series.  Yet when it comes to regulating and overseeing the financial industry and "the economy" (there is no such entity.  the economy is just a way to describe how billions of people make individual decisions on how to maximize their utility through the trading of goods and services through a medium of exchange), this is precisely what we are being told is best for us.  

We hear a lot about the so-called "revolving door" between Wall Street and the SEC.  On the other hand, we see that the alternative likely involves some career bureaucrat with no experience in business or finance (other than being a regulator, which doesn't count) attempting to oversee a massive agency that is supposed to protect us from ever repeating this financial crisis by "keeping Wall Street in check."  But it is this watchful eye that helped contribute to the financial crisis's severity in the first place.  Beyond how government, through central banking, caused the financial crisis, we must also look at how other aspects of government regulation have contributed to the downfall of our economy, and how the Obama Administration is prescribing a bigger cancer to treat the little one.

There are currently three primary options on the table, according to the financial press, for the Obama Treasury to deal with the continued slide of the banking system.  One of the options is to create a "Bad Bank" (a strange suggestion when it seems that there are plenty of bad banks to choose from).  The Bad Bank would be a government bank (as if we needed another one) that would buy up all of the toxic assets from the private sector banks, thereby relieving their balance sheets of all of their horrendous mistakes.  This is like a "Get Out of Jail Free" card for the big banks and their shareholders, but it reeks of Moral Hazard (I know, we're way past that already), and worst of all, it would mean that the Treasury would have to price these assets when it purchased them.  Even Tim Geithner, the new same-as-the-old Secretary of Treasury has admitted that this is an incredibly complicated process.  It is complicated because all of the prices will be fictitious.  

In economics, we would say that this situation would create what is known as a "monopsony."  Everybody is familiar with the term "monopoly," where there is only one seller in a market.  Monopsony is just the flip side--it is where there is only one buyer.  There are not a lot of examples of monopsony in the free market, primarily because neither monopolies nor monopsonies can exist in a truly free market.  But another example of one does involve the government--the defense industry.  There are many suppliers of military goods in the United States (Lockheed, Raytheon, Boeing, GE, and many others), but only one buyer: Uncle Sam.  This means that Uncle Sam gets to set the price.  When there is only one buyer, then the monopsonist is called the "price setter."

With the Treasury-Bad Bank situation, the price will no doubt be wrong.  It will either be too high (and the government will lose even more money) or it will be too low (and the banks will still fail).  The problem with government planning is that prices that are not determined by supply and demand through all willing and available buyers and sellers interacting is that price always ends up being arbitrary.  

This is when all of the talk of the "problems with deregulation" causes me to scratch my head.  Deregulation did not cause the financial crisis, because there was no real deregulation.  They rearranged the chairs, and helped prop up the big financial institutions by raising the barriers to entry for potential competition, but this is hardly what true free market advocates would call "deregulation."  What we need now is some genuine deregulation.  

What we need is eBay for financial assets.  Citi has billions upon billions of bad assets on its books.  It can't get them off unless it a) sells them or b) lies on its books.  The SEC has made the latter the de facto policy since it postponed its enforcement of new accounting rules requiring balance sheets to show their assets at their actual value, rather than at the value for which they were purchased.  This fraud, made possible by the SEC, is only a finger in the dyke, and there are holes popping up all around.  The only real solution is for them to liquidate their bad assets.  They should have been doing this months, if not years ago.  But thanks to the thousands and thousands of pages of financial regulations (this is of course what the Newspeak Media calls "deregulation"), this is trickier than it would appear.

Open and uninhibited markets allow willing buyers and willing sellers to transact business at mutually agreed upon prices.  Citi and others would, in that instance, be able to create an eBay-like auction system to sell their toxic (and non-toxic) assets on the open market.  They may not like the price they will get for them, but at least then the real damage can be assessed.  If Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers had been able to begin this process in 2006, then the collapse would not have been nearly as severe, as capital would have been flowing away from bad investments and back toward good ones.  

However, regulation prevented this from happening.  It is the stimulus, and further regulation proposed by the Obama Administration and Congress that will delay this process even further.  It is also this new regulation that will make the next crisis even worse.

Iceland, Latvia, and the Problems of the State

Watching the video of the riots in Iceland and Latvia, and elsewhere in Europe, it is difficult not to feel a tremendous amount of sympathy for the rioters.  These are not radical anarchists or communists seeking to violently overthrow stable, sound governments out of some irrational commitment to a failed ideology, but rather stable, sound people expressing their disgust (in close to the most extreme manner possible) at irrational governments that have corruptly been in bed with the big banks and financial institutions whose irresponsibility has caused this wreck.  But we must never forget that banking irresponsibility would not have been possible without the governments of the world actively inducing and encouraging this irresponsibility.  

The people of Iceland have now gotten their chance to throw out the crooks currently in power.  Their choices will likely be between the old crooks and one or two sets of new crooks.  One of the sets of new crooks will probably gain support through popularly misdiagnosing the crisis's origins as being the result of too little government regulation and oversight of the financial system.  This popular mythology seems to become more widespread every day.  Not having the credit rating of the U.S. Treasury, Iceland does not quite have the room for error that the United States does, and their Central Bank has only limited tools to intervene.  

The "government didn't do enough" crooks will propose inflation as a solution to deflation (in the same way a witch doctor might prescribe a fever as medicine for a cold).  Historically speaking, it is this group that has the best chance at the polls, because most people in the West still look at government as this quasi-omnipotent being that can solve all of the world's problems if only it has the will to do so.  The sobriety of my own view is somewhat reminiscent of Kipling's phrase "On the hopes that our world was built on, they were utterly out of touch; They denied that the moon was Stilton, they denied she was even Dutch."  Yet, this "we can do all things through government who strengthens us" nonsense is long from its ultimate death, though a simple historical education ought to cure most modern men and women of this psychological illness.  

There will be another group of crooks who will say that maybe the banks are made up of robber barons, but they must be saved to save the economy as a whole.  This group of crooks was recently shown the door in the United States (in favor of the group of crooks I just described).  Given the emotionally charged reality of unemployment, this is almost assuredly a losing view, but will be popular among the wealthier of society who are trying to preserve what wealth they have left that wasn't squandered at the financial roulette table.  

What we likely will not see in Iceland, Latvia, the United Kingdom (if Gordon Brown ever gets around to calling a national election) and elsewhere in the parliamentary world is a sober and enlightened epiphany "wait, maybe the question should not be who runs the government but whether government itself is the problem."  Indeed, this question, seemingly obvious to me, does not even cross the minds of the vast majority of people in the human race.  It seems that having tried socialism, big government, and limited government, all to no avail, that we could at least give "virtually-no-government" a try.  

So to the rioters in Iceland and Latvia, and anywhere else in the world where you have decided not to take it anymore, consider repudiating the new crooks as well as the old.  Consider the option of building a stable civil society predicated on non-coercion and mutual cooperation instead of one where one group of people is empowered to destroy your currency, your jobs, and your freedom.  There IS an alternative, but you--nay, we all--must be willing to shed our childish dependence on the State and our fear of what is on the other side and embrace liberty as the ultimate empowering force on the Earth. 

Condemnation is the Province of Pharisees

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness."

-Excerpted from The Gospel According to St. Matthew, Chapter 23

The only people Christ ever condemned during his earthly ministry were religious leaders.  Indeed, much of his earthly ministry was spent correcting the errors that had been passed down through the generations by the religious leadership of the Jewish people.  This is the reason for the frequent construction "You have heard it said...but I say" that we find in Christ's rhetoric in the Gospels.  This is indeed what put him so at odds with the religious order of his day, the gatekeepers of the Jewish theological tradition who were threatened by any suggestion that perhaps they had been wrong.

The Pharisees are alive and well today, and they are in panic mode over the election of Barack Obama. 

(Given my sharp criticisms of the newly inaugurated American President, and my consistent opposition to the vast majority of his policies, certainly nobody can contend that today's post is a defense of Obama's ideology or of Obama himself.)

Conservative pastor John Piper posted to his blog under the title How Barack Obama Will Make Christ a Minister of Condemnation.  He argues that Obama's inclusion of the Episcopalian Bishop of New Hampshire, Gene Robinson in the inauguration ceremony is "tragic...because [Obama] is willing to get behind the church endorsement of sexual intercourse between men."  

Before we get into Piper's poor theology and the dogma behind his outrage, it is worthy of pointing out that he first suffers from extraordinarily poor logic.  This is something that seems to be endemic to the people of his religious persuasion.  First, to say even, as Piper does beforehand, that Obama endorses the "legitimacy of homosexual intercourse" by including Robinson in the inaugural ceremony does not follow from the evidence.  He may very well support these things, but to my knowledge he has not made statements to this effect, either on the campaign trail or as President-Elect.  The act of including Robinson itself falls far short of substantiating Piper's claim.  

This logical leap ignores the possibility that Obama was just trying to be politically correct after causing such a stir in his own party for inviting Rick Warren to lead the invocation. It also ignores that Obama is as genuinely inclusive as his political rhetoric would have us believe (I don't know how likely this is, but we must at least admit the possibility) and that he could quite possibly be very homophobic but believe that all human beings deserve to be included in the workings of their government and to have equal rights and dignified treatment.  Further, it neglects that Obama is conscious of his own race's struggle against wide-spread discrimination that although he might (again, I do not know his heart) think that homosexuality is immoral or at least strange, he nevertheless does not want to see another group of people marginalized by society and discriminated against, and saw Bishop Robinson's involvement at the inauguration as a way to make a statement against this.

Although the underlying reason could be precisely what Piper argues it is, it is grossly irresponsible for him to make the conclusion so firmly and so resolutely, and to go so far as to claim that it causes Barack Obama to make Christ a minister of condemnation.  For such a fierce charge, he provides mere assertion as his evidence and ignores a host of perfectly reasonable alternative explanations.  It is importance to establish this, as we find it is a pattern of behavior within Piper's post and otherwise, in fact. (Back when I was a self-righteous and bigoted Southern Baptist Pharisee, I read many of Piper's books, and even then I found his logic in many regards to be fundamentally flawed, even if at the time I agreed with his conclusions.  The reason that writers of his persuasion get away with this is that their audience already agrees with their conclusions, and so they will go along with the arguments regardless of how shoddy they are).

This brings us to his common, but grotesque exegesis of Paul's first epistle to the Corinthian church.  Piper would presumably have us believe that this is one of the proof-texts against homosexuality in the New Testament, and that it is a conclusive repudiation of homosexual sexual acts, universally.  He does this by employing an overtly political translation of the passage that ignores not only the historical context of the writing, but more importantly (and egregiously) the very syntax of the writing itself.  

He quotes:

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves , nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11)

This translation is among the worst with respect to the liberties taken by the translators.  The original Greek does not use a phrase for "men who practice homosexuality," as there is not even a word for "homosexuality."  In fact, Paul, writing in Greek, used two words,  "malakoi" and "arsenokoitai." Whether Piper realizes this and chose to select a  translation that belies the original Greek for political reasons, or he is simply completely ignorant of Greek (given that he has a doctorate, I'd assume the latter explanation is less likely) is ultimately irrelevant.  The Greek word "malakoi" literally means "soft."  Its first translation into English was to the word "effeminate," in the King James Version.  This is an inherently problematic translation as not all gay men are effeminate, and not all effeminate men are gay.  Would then effeminate heterosexuals be condemned under this rendering?

The problem for Piper is that the word "malakoi" in Paul's time denoted a male prostitute or a "house boy," who provided sex to the head male of the household, who also happened to be married to a woman in most cases.  There is even some historical evidence to suggest that the word applied specifically to male temple prostitutes who dressed as women and participated in orgy-like rituals as part of pagan religious practice in Rome.  This word has extensive use in the context of prostitution in the era that Paul was writing, and it is not only a logical leap to conclude that it unquestionably refers to "all homosexual men," but it displays a marked lack of humility on the part of Piper as exegete, as he admits no possibility that it could mean other than his own modern translation says that it does.

The word "arsenokoitai" is used only one other place in the Scriptures, and that is in Paul's first epistle to Timothy, which is more or less a repeat of his letter to Corinth.  Otherwise, it has no other scriptural context, and it is worth noting that neither "malakoi" nor "arsenokoitai" appear anywhere in the Gospels.  Furthermore, "arsenokoitai" is thought to even be a neologism of Paul's own creation, as it is the first appearance of the word in any other Greek language writings still extant, and it has scant use thereafter.  The King James Version translates this word as "abusers of themselves with mankind," which is a vague phrase with no other context.  Martin Luther translated the word as the German for "child abusers."  Given that pederasty was common among Romans (as it was amongst the Greeks before), it is possible that the term refers specifically to the adult men who kept and maintained such "house boys."  This would not be an unreasonable translation, given Luther's disposition to apply the term to child molesters, and given the fact that most "house boys" were generally under the age of 18 (and started their duties sometimes as early as 14 years of age).  

Far from being a resolute and unequivocal condemnation of all homosexuality, the actual evidence (as opposed to that fabricated by Piper and his homophobic friends) in the Pauline record takes a far more limited approach to the subject of sexual ethics entirely.  

The modern predisposition against homosexuals and homosexuality stems from a bias that has existed since St. Augustine, himself apparently a closeted homosexual, or at least one who had previously had a significant and longstanding "crush" on another male.  (Read Chapters 4 and 6 of Book VII).  Augustine's view of sex, which was essentially that it was in all forms vile, even as it tended toward procreation, and that procreative sex was only to be accepted grudgingly.  Indeed, the Augustinian view of sex would have a profound influence on St. Thomas Aquinas and his own view of the subject, the two of which have continued their influence to today.  Thus when Piper and others declare the "historic view" of the Church, they are reaching backward to periods of social history where theological exegesis (as in our own day) is derived in large part from common preconceptions as opposed to thorough scholarship.  Given that the contemporary conservative Church has had a vested interest in maintaining the social status quo (the Southern Baptist Convention did not even formally apologize for its support of Slavery until the 1990s), it is no surprise that there has been no interest or desire amongst this segment of the Christian religion to scrutinize its understanding of sexual ethics generally, or of homosexuality in particular.  

Piper then quotes the Anglican Calvinist theologian J.I. Packer, stating that homosexuals, like adulterers and thieves, will "keep people out of God's kingdom of salvation."  The Packer quotation is important to Piper's case, but it is important as it indicates the liberties that Piper and others would like to take with some of the text of the Gospels that is not just questionable, but distinctly and historically unsound, either intentionally or accidentally ignorant of Jesus's First Century Jewish upbringing, cultural context, and taking into account the specific audiences he was addressing during his earthly ministry.  

We must initially observe that the phrase "kingdom of salvation" is Packer's (or somebody else's) own innovation, but appears nowhere in the Scriptures themselves, in either the Old or New Testaments.  It is, we must assume, a purposeful alteration of the Gospel usage of phrases "the kingdom of God" and "the kingdom of Heaven," which we find commonly in Christ's own language, and mimicked in the Acts of the Apostles and the writings of St. Paul.  "The kingdom of Heaven" is a phrase entirely unique to the Gospels, with St. Paul's writings exclusively utilizing the translated construction "The kingdom of God." 

It is quite common for those unlearned in 1st Century Judaism to to assume that Christ's use of the phrase "the kingdom of God" to mean plainly "heaven" or the state of affairs of the redeemed after the end of their mortal lives on earth.  This simplistic and out-of-context interpretation seriously damages one's understanding of the Gospel message, and indeed of the person of Christ himself.  Brad Young (Ph.D., Hebrew University) who serves as the founder of the Gospel Research Foundation, an organization committed to exploring the Jewish roots of the Christian faith, perhaps writes the most clear and instructive analysis of the meaning of these phrases within Christ's own cultural and linguistic context.  I shall quote rather at length from his work Jesus the Jewish Theologian.  

"Jesus does not give a dictionary definition of the kingdom of heaven, but he does tell his listeners what the kingdom is like via simple, yet powerful, parables.  Although Jesus used simple word pictures to help his listeners understand, a careful study of the decisive technical term "the kingdom of heaven" in his teachings demonstrates that the original meaning of the kingdom has been routinely misunderstood in modern times...Johannes Weiss, the famous German New Testament scholar, and Albert Schweitzer, the well-known physician and theologian footsteps, claimed that the kingdom of heaven is an eschatological term referring only to the future day of judgment.  The views of C.H. Dodd and J. Jeremias also emphasized the future meaning of the kingdom of heaven.  In a similar way, the dispensationalists claim that the kingdom will not appear until the millennium, at the conclusion of the present church age.  In the increasingly prevalent theology of the "kingdom now" movement, the kingdom of heaven is established on earth by human efforts which pave the way for the second coming.  Popularly speaking, some Christians believe the kingdom of heaven refers to life after death.  They think that someone must die to enter the kingdom...

"Is the kingdom of heaven to be revealed only in the distant future? Are the people of God able to establish his reign on earth by obtaining positions of leadership and power within the present political order?  Is the kingdom experienced only at death? In Jesus's teachings, the kingdom of heaven is a powerful force in the world which brings healing and wholeness.  Jesus defines the kingdom from his present experience rather than from his view of the end time.  He expected his disciples to continue the kingdom's work...Moreover, the approaches of Weiss, Schweitzer, the dispensationalists, and those many others who could be discussed are mistaken as well...

"Jesus taught that the 'poor in spirit' make up the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus' followers are those who mourn.  They are meek.  They hunger and thirst for God's righteousness and long for his salvation.  They are merciful and pure in heart.  According to Jesus, the members of the kingdom are the peacemakers.  Jesus taught that his followers must turn the other cheek and go the second mile.  The greatest in the kingdom is the one who serves others and who is willing to suffer in the interim in order to see God's higher purposes achieved.  Jesus believed that redemption was possible as each person submits to the divine will and accepts his yoke.  When someone who is hated by others loves in return, when someone who is persecuted learns to forgive from his or her heart, then the inner force of the kingdom is released.  INdeed such power is able to work the miracles of healing and redemption in a needy world.  Jesus taught about God's reign in parables.  Jesus vividly illustrates through parables the progressive growth of the kingdom as it is compared to the mysterious power of a mustard seed and the unfathomable fermenting properties of the leaven in the dough.  God's kingdom is not delivered into the hands of select leaders in order to control the lives of others.  It cannot be viewed only as a future event reserved for the day of judgment.  The kingdom is a present reality for those people who choose to obey the teachings of Jesus, to accept God's redemptive power in their lives, and toe exemplify the qualities of discipleship and servanthood in a hurting and needy world...It is like a mustard seed that grows into a tree.  It is like leaven that permeates the entire loaf."

The prescient point for the present analysis is that St. Paul's own context is the Gospel account of Christ's ministry.  Without the Beatitudes, without Christ's parables, St. Paul's language excluding people from "the kingdom of God" is meaningless.  We can understand rightly then, that as Christ provided the qualities of those who would inherit the kingdom of heaven, St. Paul is describing the attributes of people whose behavior is antithetical to these things.  If we engage the text by logically connecting Christ's inclusion and St. Paul's exclusion, then we can come to a better understanding of his overall purpose here, as well as to understand the problem with Packer's restructured phraseology, employing "kingdom of salvation" as opposed to the original phrases used in the Scriptures themselves.  

Would Drs. Piper and Packer then accept Christ's declaration that it would be "harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven" as meaning that people with earthly or material things are damned to hell?  Certainly Dr. Piper could not afford the financial loss to his ministry if he taught that, but I do wonder what he really believes on the matter.

If we are to accept Dr. Young's interpretation, on the other hand, then we have a far greater understanding of Christ's meaning (and thereby, St.  Paul's).  In Christ's day, people with great wealth often acquired it through oppressive, even violent means.  This is not as true in our own day, but there are many wealthy people stricken with greed, who do not display the fruits of the Spirit (to use St. Paul's term) of "love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control."  Indeed, we would find that these things are antithetical to what St. Paul says are the sorts of people who will not inherit the kingdom of God--thieves, idolaters, adulterers, swindlers, revilers, drunkards.  

Taking these as opposing the positive properties described in the Corinthian epistles and elsewhere in the Pauline literature, all but the most bigoted and ignorant people would agree that they know homosexuals who are "loving, peaceful, patient, kind, etc."  Apart from the disputed meanings of the terms supposedly referencing homosexuals, the other groups of people St. Paul says will not inherit the kingdom of God are people who in some way cause harm to others, and usually through deceit or malicious behavior.  The thief harms the person from whom he steals.  The adulterer harms his spouse.  The swindler harms the person swindled.  Revilers and drunkards are malicious disruption to all those around them, are unproductive sorts who contribute nothing to society.  Homosexuals, to in contraposition, do not ipso facto cause harm to anybody.  Certainly Piper could contrive a distorted view of the world wherein homosexuals by their very existence in some sense "damage society," but this is not only a strained view of the common understanding of the word "harm," but it is terribly difficult to even pinpoint the victim of the homosexual (in the context of consensual homosexuality), whereas the swindler's victim is particular and definable.  

Moreover, there is a tendency among religious conservatives like Piper to assume that homosexual sexual intercourse is the sine qua non of homosexuality writ large, as if it were for sexual gratification and that reason alone that gay individuals entered into relationships with one another (it behooves us to note, if a bit late, that there is no reasonable translation of the Pauline epistles that anywhere mentions lesbianism, as the specific words apply to masculine "perpetrators."  In fact, the only potential reference to lesbianism is found in a rather convoluted interpretation of the first Chapter of St. Paul's epistle to the church at Rome.  This further compounds the view that St. Paul is condemning homosexuality universally, when one gender's homosexuality is entirely excluded from his supposed condemnation).

Gay people, like straight people, seek companionship with people to whom they are attracted and have things in common.  One would hardly hear a married person argue that sex was the end-all, be-all of his relationship and not think he might be quite astray from a reasonable understanding of the institution of marriage.  Gay relationships are no different in this respect.  Healthy, stable relationships are predicated on and built around love, mutual respect, honesty, and dignity.  Unhealthy relationships are built around selfish desires for sexual gratification, other selfish behavior and desires, the want of another person's material possessions, the desire to live off the productive fruits of another person, the hope to please one's parents by marrying a particular person, etc.  To assert that homosexuals and heterosexuals are different in these respects is not only to be ignorant of human psychology, but to display an arrogant prejudice that dehumanizes one's fellow man in the pursuit of one's own self-righteous piety.

Ultimately, this is where we find Piper's analysis at the end of the day.  The "ministry of damnation" is not on the shoulders of President Obama or Gene Robinson, but upon Dr. Piper's own shoulders.  He seeks to turn a message of hope and unconditional love into a bigoted rejection of Christ's own words that the greatest laws, on which hang all the law and the prophets are "Love the Lord your God" and "Love thy neighbor as thyself."  Piper may arrogantly assert that he is merely loving his neighbor, but he is really only self-righteously asserting that he himself knows better than others what is right for them, perhaps because he has some peculiar divine appointment from God or perhaps because he is just more intelligent.  

Piper, a baptist (to my knowledge) seems inherently by his writing to reject one of the most fundamental aspects of historic baptist doctrine, "the priesthood of the believer."  Each man and woman is to work out his or her own faith "with fear and trembling" (to borrow from the New Testament language).  We must assume that Piper seeks to supersede this process by imposing his own view (however historically inaccurate or biblically strained) of the matter.  

Instead of welcoming, with open arms, all those who seek a better life by embracing the law of love and the teachings of Christ, and allowing those people to work through the issues of their lives with careful discernment and prayer, Piper wants to rebuke and exclude people who disagree with his views, and sullying the reputation of the Church as being a bigoted institution that rejects any divergence from its leadership's own orthodoxy.  The likes of Piper have been responsible for turning thousands, if not millions of people away from the Church, either directly by running them out of their halls, or indirectly, by making them feel alien and unwelcome.  Even if homosexuality were the moral equivalence of adultery and thievery, Christ himself welcomed the adulterers and the thieves, and the Church must do so too, with the same loving embrace that Christ did, not with the pious down-looking attitudes of the Pharisees.

I would be remiss if I did not grant a few things before ending this already lengthy post, and so in spite of breaking all conventions of conciseness, I will do so now.

Without question, specific expressions of homosexuality can no doubt, fall into sinfulness, as can specific expressions of heterosexuality.  This would have been a far more biblically agreeable ground from which Piper could have criticized Gene Robinson's inclusion in the Obama inauguration.  Robinson, like the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katherine Jeffers-Schori, more than strain orthodoxy in their views not only of sexual ethics, but of the meaning and purpose of the Gospels, the role of the Church, etc.  Robinson and Jeffers-Schori, far from helping the cause of gay inclusion in the Anglican communion, have alienated our fellow Anglican brethren by ignoring the basic principles of community and the specific canons and covenants of both the Communion and the Episcopal Church.  

The divisiveness of Bishop Robinson's consecration was the beginning, not the end, of the reckless and feckless actions by the left-wing of the Episcopal Church, which has, in the intervening years, rent asunder one of the most rich theological traditions in the United States and, given the effects this divisiveness has had on the Communion, the world.  The prosecution of the Bishop of Pittsburgh, and his defrocking was not only in outright violation of the Canons of the Episcopal Church, but it was a base, politically motivated witch hunt by Jeffers-Schori and others.  

Rather than being willing to endure persecution and with a long-suffering manner with love and tenderness try to convince the Anglicans of the "global South" of their error in hatefully condemning and excluding homosexuals from the Church, Jeffers-Schori and the left-wing of the Episcopal Church have themselves become the persecutors, all the while in some sense abandoning every pretext of historic Christian orthodoxy, from the Trinity to Original Sin.  George Will wrote, in an October article about the Episcopal Church that "The Episcopal Church once was America's upper crust at prayer. Today it is "progressive" politics cloaked -- very thinly -- in piety." If a religious figure is to criticize Robinson et al, it should be on these grounds, not others. 

The problem with both Piper and Jeffers-Schori (and to a lesser extent, Robinson) is that they are Pharisees, but of different doctrines.  Both ultimately reject the call of Christ to love one another as even he loved us.  Both ultimately reject, both in spirit and in practice, the command to do unto others as we would have them do unto ourselves.  If we wonder why the Church is falling apart, and why the number of secularists has skyrocketed, it is because we have rejected the very unity of the body of Christ that he commanded to us on Maundy Thursday.  As the church continues to fracture and fragment, it will grow leaner and more frail.  If we are to adhere dogmatically to a doctrine, let it be the doctrine of "faith, hope, and love--these three, the greatest of which is love."  

Christ commanded us to love our enemies.  Perhaps Dr. Piper and Bishop Robinson should sit down with one another and become living examples of what this means.  It would not be politically correct for either of them to do this, so I will not hold my breath.

I do not hold malicious thoughts toward either man, however.  I think both of them, like myself, are working out their faith with fear and trembling.  But I think we must all go through this process with greater humility, and with our eyes focused on God, not on each other.  If we see each other in the frail state that God sees us, then perhaps we would be more likely to help heal each other's wounds than to create more scars.