Leaving behind economics, ethics and morals, from a religious point of view forcing someone to do anything against his will is worthless for his salvation, since the value of the action is in the will, not in the outcome. And at the same time the one that uses the violence against others only to pursue his will does an awful job for his soul…

Besides, faith is a gift from God, some receive it, some do not. Any true believer should be able to see how dumb is trying to overcome a God`s decision on the faith others receive. Those who do not believe deserve only love, our prays and example, never our hate and confrontation.

As long as nobody acts against our live or property there is no justification to use violence.

A society with christian values is desirable and better, it will be a better place and will grow stronger and more than others with weak bases or hedonist. But you can only achieve that with time, love and example, never through the violent force. End does not justify the meanings, much more when they are totally incongruent (violence to impose love and peace???).
The funny thing is that if we succeed as christians, we will find out that the society we achieve will have the very same core values proposed by liberalism…

I read the the end of the American Thinker version, that you are a former radical liberal and now have been converted to “biblical conservatism”. That is the first time I have heard that term, what in the woirld is it and what foundational thinker is it based upon?

btw, I thought the article lacked a solid foundation. Libertarian thought revolves around but ONE premise, non-aggression. Do not confuse economics with political philosophy. They are separate and distinct.

Mr. Woods is an intelligent man, but I don’t believe he entirely understood what I was trying to say, and I hope to clear these issues up. I suppose an entire essay could be written for each one of his points, so I hope to address the issues shortly. This is an extremely important, extremely dense topic, after all.

Thank you for passing the link along!

Regarding your first concern, to address economic man you must address spiritual man; the two aren’t necessarily separate fields. If one looks to the philosophers which birthed American values, they placed a primary value on spiritual matters, regarding them the foundation of any sensible system of government. Right now I’m looking at a logic textbook, written by Isaac Watts, the standard logic textbook at one time in our Ivy League schools, which firmly asserts that reason is a gift of God, for a particular purpose. What that purpose is, isn’t something that pure reason can say. It requires revelation.

From Locke, to Blackstone, to Montesquieu, to Grotius, to even Thomas Paine (a deist!), the existence of God and the Scriptures provided the philosophical groundwork necessary to birth a truly lawful society. And living within the means of proper Law, our relations between man and man, is what properly comprises civilization. To construct a system of ethics and government apart from this is antithetical to our founding principles; one may argue in favor of a truly “rational” society, foregoing dependence upon Scriptural truths. But that attempt would result in something entirely different than America. This nation, as Alexis de Tocqueville plainly stated, repeatedly, in Democracy in America, was firmly founded upon Christian religiosity; our liberty and Biblical principles were entirely intertwined.

Secondly, I hope to address the concept of utilitarianism in later essay, but I agree with your statement: the pursuit of happiness isn’t necessarily the same thing as the pursuit of pleasure, and to confuse them would be a horrible, slanderous mistake. I wish I’d had more space to clarify my position, as I was concerned people would get the wrong impression. Mises actually addressed the issue very well; but his statement about who wouldn’t fit into a liberal society (included in the article) showcases how sharply he divides from traditional Americans on what law is and isn’t used for. Once again, you may create a society which permits all kinds of vice, but historical records require us to understand how antithetical to traditional Americanism — and indeed, Biblical teaching — such a system would be.

God bless, and thank you for your thoughtful and well-stated comment.

-J

The beauty of Libertarianism is that it is the only political/economic philosophy that respects all religions by not being a religion itself. It simply tells us how to get along given our human limitations and those things we can all agree upon, such as that there is a sun. We in the west do not want to live under Sharia law, and the Muslims do not agree with our freedoms here. There is not another political system that I am aware of that describes how we shall all get along and that places a limit on the amount of violence that it is willing to let people in power exercise over others. It is this limit of power and the importance of individual freedom that draws me to Libertarianism. It is not about earthly pleasure but about mutual respect. Just as Christianity is not about The Bible, but the message in The Bible. So too is Libertarianism not about the pleasure and the world, but about individual freedom, and what has been proven time and again is that personal property is the foundation of individual freedom not religious principles. If religious principles are to be the foundation of law how will a democracy function? Will the God of Islam have equal say as the Christian God? And if not religion, than what basis will there be for a foundation of law, in a free and equal society, other than private property?

“The essential teaching of liberalism is that social cooperation and the division of labor can be achieved only in a system of private ownership of the means of production, i.e., within a market society, or capitalism. All the other principles of liberalismdemocracy, personal freedom of the individual, freedom of speech and of the press, religious tolerance, peace among the nations are consequences of this basic postulate. They can be realized only within a society based on private property.” –Ludwig Von Mises, Omnipotent Government

The next point in your essay I would like to address is the idea of pleasure and your assumption that all pleasure is worldly. But I think you would be committing the same sin you accuse Mises of if you think that pleasure is simply of this world. After all is there a difference in the definition of pleasure if one man takes pleasure in overindulgence and another takes it in fasting. Are not both taking pleasure, one by overconsumption and the other by under consumption? One finds joy in the moment in the physical and the other in the mental or future thought of pleasure which, at this particular instant, brings him more pleasure and thus he acts in the manner that brings him the most pleasure, joy or happiness. He would not be acting out of a denial of pleasure but simply based on his beliefs choosing a different pleasure in a different manner, even if that means forgoing physical pleasure to experience heavenly pleasure at a later time. It is the desire for pleasure or happiness that drives each mans actions.

Thanks for your time and I am happy to see other reading Mises work as I also to find it to be a work a of supreme magnitude.

Thanks again!

I will let Von Mises answer your charge from his book Classical Liberalism. I hope in the future you will study and understand an idea more before rejecting it. I also pass on to you a Bible passage that I hope will help you understand that even God warns man against the dangers of having a King or government.

http://mises.org/liberal/isec2.asp
http://www.enduringword.com/commentaries/0908.htm