This is the sixth volume in the series The Church and Postmodern Culture, edited by James K. A. Smith. The series “features high-profile theorists in continental philosophy and contemporary theology writing for a broad, nonspecialist audience interested in the impact of postmodern theory on the faith and practice of the church.”

Although I am not the least bit interested in postmodern theory, I am very interested in the intersection of Christianity and economics or politics. Thus, the phrase “Christianity and Capitalism” in this book’s subtitle caught my eye. Nevertheless, I have never been more disappointed, or bored.

The author describes his work as “a contribution to the conversation about the relationship of Christianity to capitalism with a postmodern twist.” That twist is nothing short of pure Christian anti-capitalism, although of a very unique kind. You see, Daniel Bell, professor of theological ethics at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary and the author of several books, is not a socialist. He maintains that his book “changes the focus from capitalism versus socialism to capitalism versus the divine economy made present by Christ and witnessed to by the church.”

Fortunately, I didn’t have to read through the whole book to discover what the author meant by capitalism. He equates capitalism with the “free-market economy” because the name “highlights the centrality of the market.” This is well and good, and certainly makes it easier to understand where the author is coming from. Unfortunately, this is not the case for understanding Bell’s concept of the divine economy.

According to Bell:

The free market is a total market, a market that is at the center of life and society. By setting Christianity against this I am suggesting that the market should be neither total nor free. That is, it should not be the central institution in life and society, nor should its capitalist logic go unchecked. More specifically, I am suggesting that the market, and indeed the discipline of economics, should be subordinate to theological concerns.

He believes that “the market economy should be subordinate to and so reinforce the virtuous life.” In his “faithful alternative to capitalism,” we still “labor and produce, acquire and distribute, buy and sell, trade and invest, lend and borrow, but we do so in a manner that is different from others insofar as we do so in a manner informed by a desire schooled in virtues such as charity, justice, and generosity.”

After an introduction in which the above is sketched out, there are two chapters on the economic ideas of the French philosophers Micel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze, who Bell acknowledges were Marxists. He refers to them throughout the book, even more than Adam Smith, of whom Bell has nothing good to say. Why Deleuze and Foucault? Because they “help us to see that capitalism is more than a mode of production, that it is an economy of desire.” In chapters 3 and 4, building “on the insights of Deleuze and Foucault,” Bell subjects capitalism to “a moral evaluation.” This is the heart of his anti-capitalism. The next three chapters “appropriate the lessons of Deleuze and Foucault for the sake of envisioning the church as an alternative economy where desire is being healed by participation in the divine economy of God’s eternal generosity.” The final chapter “introduces the practice of the works of mercy as the diaspora or pilgrim form that the divine economy takes in the midst of the world’s economies.” There is also a brief preface and conclusion, a series preface, a series editor foreword, and an index. Although the book is heavily footnoted, there is no bibliography.

Bell’s problem with capitalism is not that it doesn’t work; for example, succeed in alleviating or reducing poverty, but “the kind of work that it does when it works.” Even if capitalism actually improves the plight of the poor, “it would still be wrong and therefore rightly resisted.” Even if it “made everyone on the planet a millionaire tomorrow, it is still wrong and is to be opposed because of what it does to human desire and human sociality.” The capitalist “economy of desire” is a manifestation of sin because it both corrupts desire and obstructs communion.”

Capitalism is wrong because “its discipline distorts human desire.” It “obstructs our friendship with God.” It actively works against “the divine will for the renewal of communion with God and humanity.” It “deforms and corrupts human desire into an insatiable drive for more.” It “orders human relations as struggle and conflict.” It “encourages us to view others in terms of how they can serve our self-interested projects.” It is “untethered from virture, from common good.” It rejects “social justice.” It is “founded on an idolatrous vision of God.” It regards “the effort by individuals or governments to coerce one into redistributing wealth” as itself “an act of injustice.” It elevates the corporation “as a mediator of God on par with the church” and “Adam Smith, and modern economists in general, as heralds of the good news of material redemption above and beyond what Jesus envisioned.” It is “marked by a possessive individualism.” It cannot coexist with “the virtue of charity.” It is too impersonal. It doesn’t acknowledge God’s purposes for humanity. It fails to nurture communion. It “treats material goods as deterritorialized commodities that come to us with no purpose other than that which our autonomous wills choose.” It “encourages us to treat goods (and persons) as of no intrinsic value.” It “orders human relations agonistically.” It “deforms human desire such that we neither desire the things of God nor relate to God and one another as we ought.” It “distorts the creative power that is human desire by constantly creating new objects/idols for its fascination.” Its driving force is “scarcity.” It makes a virtue of avarice or greed. It is “nihilistic.” Capitalism is, in a word, “sin.”

Bell likewise disdains individualism, Pareto optimality, self-interest, efficiency, marketing, trade secrets, freedom of choice, corporations, competition, the division of labor, the invisible hand, the rich, laissez faire, philanthropy, and interest. Yet, he is careful to say that his idea of the divine economy “does not condemn production, consumption, private property, profit taking, contracts, the division of labor, or markets in themselves.”

Now you can see exactly why I said his anti-capitalism is of a very unique kind.

According to Bell, the alternative to capitalism is not socialism but “the kingdom of God, where those who build, inhabit; where those who planet, harvest; and where all are filled.” It is “not something that we construct; rather, it is something we confess that God is doing here and now.” It “has already appeared, even if it is not yet present in its fullness.” It “is present in the initiatives that have emerged from the practices of simplicity and solidarity.” It “appears in our midst in an array of institutions and practices that encompass lay and ordained, congregations and intentional communities, as well as institutions and initiatives organized by both church leaders and laity.” But “just as the capitalist division of labor conceals from us the conditions of commodity production, so we do not see the divine economy that is taking shape and already active all around us, even in the church.”

If you are starting to get bored, dazed, and confused then try reading the book.

So where is Bell going with all of this? That is the question I asked as I turned each page of the book. We get a hint on page 129 where Bell introduces “two distinct but interrelated disciplines, or asceticisms” that the church’s economy of desire enacted in history “for the sake of healing desire of its economic disorder.” These are renunciation, characterized by the monastic life with its vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience; and sharing, characterized by almsgiving or stewardship. It is only near the end of the book where we see that voluntary poverty includes the virtue of begging.

The material goods God has given us are “not intended solely for our private good, but “are given for the sake of meeting our needs—our needs and the needs of our near and distant neighbors.” We should see to it that material goods are “put to their proper, divinely intended use.” Since “all that we have and all that we are is meant to serve the common good,” we are called “to work for the common good.” Therefore, “our various rolls [sic] and jobs ought to be describable/narratable in terms of service to the common good.”

Bell’s divine economy is characterized by “sharing and solidarity; noncompetitive, complementary exchange; and mutuality.” The divine economy does not call for the abolition of private property, but “property used in a manner that serves the common good.” Private property “is simply a means of serving the common good.” His divine economy “is not adverse to all profit taking.” But legitimate profit is “use value, which is measured in relation to the common good.” Labor in the divine economy is not “sheer drudgery and/or a necessary evil,” or even a “job or career,” but is instead “a vocation or calling” that is “always connected to our God-given purpose.” The divine economy “does not reject the market entirely.” It is “compatible with a limited market, but “embraces a market where efficiency does not have the last word, and where notions of a just wage and a just price are welcomed as integral components of a truly moral market.” Trade is okay as long as it is “fair trade.” Christian economics is about redeeming the practices of the market, a market which should not include interest. In fact, in his conclusion, Bell recommends that we call our banks and cancel “an interest-bearing account.”

Bell’s divine economy sounds much like the standard social justice drivel about the supposed excesses, injustices, failures, and inequalities of the market, but with a religious twist and without the usual calls for more government intervention in the market. This is what is so perplexing and frustrating about the book. The divine economy is not to be instituted by government; it is already here. We just need to follow it instead of free-market capitalism.

But Bell in The Economy of Desire is not just saying that Christians shouldn’t be materialists. He is not just giving Christians instructions on how they should interact with the market. He is not just warning Christians to not make a god out of capitalism, Adam Smith, corporations, or the free market. He believes the market everywhere and for everyone should function as a divine economy.

Among many others, there is one major problem with all this. There are billions of people on the earth that are not Christians. They care not a whit about the divine economy, the divinely intended use of goods, acknowledging God’s purposes for humanity, renunciation, sharing, or the common good. They don’t care whether their job fulfills some God-given purpose. They would rather have a job or career than a vocation or calling. And there are millions of people in the world that wish they didn’t have to beg ever again.

Should Christians change capitalism from a free market to a divine economy, thereby forcing atheists, Buddhists, and other non-Christians to either adapt or else? Bell doesn’t say. He vaguely describes how the market should be, but never says how it should be transformed into a divine economy or how such a transformation should be enforced.

And if everyone begs and gives alms then who will produce, provide, and purchase the goods and services?

The bottom line, of course, is that no divine economy needs to be introduced in the first place. As I say in book The Myth of the Just Price, laissez faire is natural, moral, and biblical. It is not the job of capitalism to alleviate or reduce poverty, see that goods are put to some divine use, help people to work for the common good, make you like your job, see that goods are distributed and traded “fairly,” ensure that profits are “legitimate,” make sure wages and prices are “just,” instill virtue, tame or redirect human desire, promote the divine will, redistribute wealth “equitably,” nurture communion with God or anyone else, stamp out avarice or greed, value goods “properly,” order human relations, or encourage us to view others in a certain way.

Capitalism is what you make of it. It is precisely because the market is a free market that you can make of it what you will. There is no such thing as market failure. Christians and everyone else can participate or not participate in the market to any degree. One can make the market the only place where anything is obtained or just a place where extra items are purchased that cannot be grown or produced “in house.” But even “buying local” requires a local market. And even a barter system still needs a market of some kind unless it is just between you and your neighbor.

Early in the book Bell asks: “With our economic lives ordered by capitalism, are we able to worship God truly? Are we able to desire God and the gifts of God as we ought?” The answer, of course, is yes.

I don’t normally read let alone review books that have absolutely nothing of value to say. The only redeeming thing about The Economy of Desire is that it is a lesson in how not to “fix” capitalism.

Time to go out and open a new interest-bearing account.

I call him a soldier because he describes himself in these terms: “I have been on 3 deployments, am a Reservist, been on Active duty before.”

The unnamed article of mine he describes as: “Your 2009 article on Christian Man Why they should NOT join the military.”

His comments are in a word, dumb; and in two words, really dumb.

Yet, the soldier’s comments surprised me. Most of the time that I receive dumb, rambling, grammatically challenged comments like his it is not from someone in the military. In spite of all the negative things I write about the military, most of the e-mails I receive from veterans and active-duty military personnel are favorable to my anti-war, anti-empire viewpoint. And especially from those men who were drafted and/or duped into going to Vietnam. It is usually armchair warriors, red-state fascists, warvangelicals, reich-wing nationalists, bloodthirsty conservatives, war-crazed Republicans, and God and country Christian bumpkins who have never been in the military themselves that write me the dumb, rambling, grammatically challenged e-mails, many of which are rambling, a number of which are filthy, many of which are incoherent, some of which are vile, and a few of which threaten to do me bodily harm. This soldier who just wrote to me is an embarrassment to everyone in the military. If these are the kind of people that are supposedly defending our freedoms, then we are in trouble.

I have selected seven of this soldier’s statements for comment because, with one exception, they express opinions—erroneous and dangerous opinions that reek of rotten baloney—that still linger in some circles even after the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan. I will not subject this soldier to ridicule that would certainly overflow his inbox if I gave out his name and e-mail address.

Here are the seven items (please excuse his grammar):

1. You know Mr. Vance it is examples such as your’s that prove time in and again WHY the service of our brave man and women that do wear that uniform and serve our country for you to have the very freedom to spew the ridiculous, mis-informed, downright false, bigoted, anti-military/anti-american rhetoric.

2. SO what do you propose? Allow terrorists and extremists to fly planes into building and send them a fruit and cheese basket with a THANK YOU card?? Sure that will work out just fine.

3. FREEDOM IS NOT FREE my friend, it is bought and paid for with the blood of brave women and men that die for it and as for the coward that you quoted that he did not think for himself, that won the medal of honor that is either something he/you made up or he is a coward.

4. Don’t be cowardly and rattle off about something you know nothing about first-hand because you have not served. If you TALK THE TALK you should have WALKED THE WALK to have first hand knowledge not just “cherry-picking” as you so choose to do.

5. If everyone had your opinion during World War II we would be speaking German right now!!!

6. I serve so you have the right to even say what you have as many others that have served and bravely fought for our very FREEDOMS.

7. My Bible does not say God will condemn them for killing if they are in a War.

And here are my brief comments.

1. U.S. military personnel are not brave and neither do they serve the country. Yes, I know that sounds shocking, disrespectable, and ungrateful, but I stand by every word. Members of the military may serve the government, they may serve the president, they may serve themselves, but they certainly don’t serve the country. How does traveling thousands of miles away and fighting against people that were no threat to the United States and never harmed an American until his country was invaded and occupied serve the country? And how can anything done in an unjust and immoral war be considered an act of bravery? We don’t call members of the Mafia brave for protecting those in their own “family” while they murder members of other “families.”

2. What do I propose? How about a foreign policy of peace, neutrality, and nonintervention so terrorists and extremists don’t want to fly planes into buildings? How about trading fruit and cheese baskets with them instead of meddling in their countries? That would certainly cut down on blowback. Fruit, cheese baskets, and thank you cards would have been just fine compared to how the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan have worked out. Why don’t you ask the widows and orphans of U.S. servicemen if they had rather that we sent fruit, cheese baskets, and thank you cards instead of launch two senseless wars that unnecessarily killed their husbands and fathers?

3. The “coward” that I “made up” was Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler (1881-1940). The one who at the time of his death was the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. The one who received the Medal of Honor twice. The one who wrote War Is a Racket. The one who proposed an “Amendment for Peace.” The namesake of the USS Butler. The namesake of Marine Corps Base Camp Smedley D. Butler. Some coward.

4. Without fail, I get this every time I write something about war or the military. The idea is that I couldn’t possibly know anything about the military because I have never “served.” Thank God I have never been in the military. I have never destroyed a country’s industry and infrastructure that was no threat to the United States, fought an unjust war of aggression, or forty-five other things that I mentioned in my article “No, I Have Never Been in the Military.”

5. This is one of the lamest justifications for the U.S. military and its unjust wars that has ever been uttered. First of all, what happened in World War II has absolutely no bearing on whether Americans should join the military now. As I have pointed out, since World War II, the U.S. military has functioned as the president’s personal attack force ready to obey his latest command to bomb, invade, occupy, and otherwise bring death and destruction to any country he deems necessary. And second, this soldier would have us believe, first of all, that Germany, which couldn’t cross the English Channel and conquer England, could have crossed the Atlantic Ocean and conquered America; and second, that Germany, which conquered France and didn’t force the French to speak German, would have conquered America and forced Americans to speak German. It was our ally in World War II—Russia under the murderous Stalin—that is known in history for trying to make the people it conquered speak another language.

6. No one is serving in the military to protect my right to say what I have. No one in the military fought in Iraq or Afghanistan for “our very freedoms.” The latter presupposes that there are countries in the world that are trying to take away our freedoms. What freedoms might that be? It is the U.S. government that has been steadily eroding our freedoms since the ink on the Constitution was dry. It is the U.S. government that we need to be concerned about, not some foreign “enemy.” The former presupposes, not only that there are people in the world who want to infringe upon my right to say what I have, but also that there are people in the world who even care enough about what I say to try to stop me from saying it. Again, it is the U.S. government that we need to be concerned about. After all, it is the U.S. government that is listening to and reading everything that Americans say and write. There is no bigger lie ever uttered than “the troops are defending our freedoms.” The troops are standing by while our freedoms are being taken away. Don’t take my word for it. Listen to VMI grad and former Army reservist Jacob Hornberger in “The Troops Don’t Defend Our Freedoms” and “An Open Letter to the Troops: You’re Not Defending Our Freedoms.”

7. This is a dangerous statement if not qualified in some way. It effectively means that in war anything goes, and anything goes in war. But if this is a true statement then Japanese, German, and Italian troops that killed Americans during World War II will suffer no condemnation from God. Therefore, who are we to condemn them? They were just following orders when they killed Americans. Why don’t we posthumously give them medals for bravery? Why don’t we build memorials to them? They are, after all, heroes. And if killing gets a free pass, then what about lesser crimes like rape, mutilation, and torture? How could rapists, mutilators, and torturers possible be condemned for doing something less severe than taking life? Unless, of course, this soldier believes that this lack of condemnation only applies to American soldiers.

I did not write all of this in reply to my soldier critic. My reply was simply this: “I hope you are planning to go to Syria and kill for the military you love so much.” I thought that would be the end of our exchange.

I was wrong:

You cowardly little twit, your foolishness shows you have no spine whatsoever. Our military keeps fools that babble like you safe, you unappreciative fool. I think you see what has happened in Syria, your opinion is we should simply sit idly by and allow people to be massacred. You are far more twisted than what I first thought possible. So what were we supposed to do when the British were here? Cower and let them take over? Silly little man.

This was followed by two more mocking e-mails.

I guess this soldier thinks that if you repeat the lie enough times that the military keeps us safe so we can do thus and so, then it will miraculously become true. And as for Syria, people have been massacred there for the last two years. Why all of a sudden now should the United States intervene? Why is it that a few hundred or a few thousand killed by gas is considered so much worse than 100,000 people killed by bullets? This soldier’s statement about the British being here is a first for me: justifying current U.S. foreign military interventions because Americans fought the British in the Revolutionary War.

Are U.S. soldiers really this dumb? Let’s hope not. Soldiers this dumb are dangerous. They are the ones who will gladly make widows and orphans on demand for the state—in the name of fighting terrorism and defending our freedoms, of course. Let’s hope they are not as dangerous as they are dumb.

Although I write about a lot of different things—abortion, libertarianism, the military, conservatism, the Republican Party, foreign aid, the minimum wage, discrimination, the war on drugs, vouchers, Social Security, Medicare, taxation, federalism, foreign policy, free trade, the Constitution, the free society, food stamps, government regulation, the U.S. empire, the state, gambling, theology, the U.S. government, English Bible history, the federal budget, war, economics, education, gun control, the welfare state, the warfare state, health care—I must confess that I do write with an agenda—an iconoclastic agenda.

My mission in life is to destroy anti-biblical Christian traditions about economics, politics, government, war, the military, and the state that are near and dear to the heart of many Christians, too many Christians. It doesn’t matter what their theological persuasion—Catholic, Baptist, Reformed, Anglican, Orthodox, Lutheran, Charismatic, Fundamentalist, Evangelical—there are enough of these anti-biblical traditions circulating for members of every group to have a handful.

I am inspired by this passage of Scripture:

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:

(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)

Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

And based on this verse of Scripture, “And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him” (Colossians 3:17), I will list some anti-biblical Christian traditions that are on the top of my agenda to be cast down.

Anti-biblical Christian traditions in word:

• Republican presidents have been good presidents.
• The troops are heroes who are defending our freedoms.
• The United States should give foreign aid to Israel.
• We need to elect a Republican president because he will appoint pro-life justices to the Supreme Court that will overturn Roe v. Wade.
• We must fight them “over there” so we don’t have to fight them “over here.”
• Romans 13 means that we must always obey the government.
• Theological conservatives should be political conservatives.
• Everyone should vote.
• Our freedom to gather and worship is guaranteed by the U.S. military.
• America is a shining city on a hill.
• The Constitution is a divine document.
• The United States is/was founded as a Christian nation.
• Muslim terrorists hate us for our freedoms.
• The state is a divine institution.
• Every young man should serve in the military.
• Vices like drug abuse should be crimes.

Anti-biblical Christian traditions in deed:

• Voting Republican.
• Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
• Thanking the troops for their service.
• Decorating the church building and grounds with flags on the Sunday before Memorial Day, Flag Day, Armed Forces Day, the Fourth of July, and Veterans Day.
• Recognizing veterans in church on the Sunday before Memorial Day, Armed Forces Day, the Fourth of July, and Veterans Day.
• Asking veterans to wear their uniforms to church on the Sunday before Memorial Day, Armed Forces Day, the Fourth of July, and Veterans Day.
• Praying for U.S. troops to be kept out of “harm’s way,” but not for the people they are shooting and bombing in places where they have no business being.
• Allowing the county election office to use the church as a polling place.
• Singing patriotic songs in church.
• Singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic anywhere.
• Serving in the military in any capacity.
• Serving in the CIA or NSA in any capacity.
• Putting patriotic or military slogans in church bulletins or on church signs.
• Applauding young people in church who announce that they are joining the military.
• Churches having military appreciation days.
• Churches having law enforcement appreciation days.

Destroying these words and deeds are my agenda. I admit it. I make no apologies for it. And God giving me the ability to write, I will continue doing it.

But because the Constitution (art. I, sec. 8) grants to Congress alone the power to “declare War,” to “raise and support Armies,” and to “provide and maintain a Navy,” even some “constitutional conservatives” have recently praised President Obama for not ordering a military strike against Syria without first consulting the Congress.

After facing opposition over his plan to launch yet another U.S. military intervention, Obama decided to seek the approval of Congress to strike against the Assad regime. Not the permission of Congress, as Jacob Hornberger recently pointed out, but the approval of Congress.

But rather than illuminating the beauty of how our constitutional system works, the Syrian situation instead reveals what a flawed document the Constitution is.

This is heresy to those conservatives who idolize the Constitution and claim to revere it, all the while giving nothing but lip service to it.

But suppose Congress did declare war on Syria and U.S. troops were right now pummeling the country with every weapon in the U.S. arsenal. Although such action would be constitutional, it would still be immoral, unnecessary, and unjust. Would a declaration of war against Iraq and Afghanistan have made those immoral, unnecessary, and unjust wars any more moral, necessary, and just?

And then to make things worse, suppose that Congress also instituted an additional heavy and burdensome tax to pay for the war. After all, the Constitution does say in article I, section 8, and in the 16^th Amendment:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

This too would be constitutional.

Being a constitutionalist is not enough. The Founding Fathers talked wisely about neutrality, nonintervention, and the dangers of entangling alliances, but, unfortunately, none of this was enshrined in the Constitution. The U.S. military could invade every country on the planet and the American people could have 90 percent of their income taken to fund the invasions, but as long as Congress declared war it would all be constitutional. And then on top of that, the U.S. government—in accordance with the “takings” clause of the Constitution (“nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation”)—can seize your property, pay you what it alone deems is “just,” bulldoze your house, construct a military base, and then tax you to pay you for your own house and to operate the base.

But even with the Constitution’s flaws, things would certainly be better if those who considered themselves to be constitutionalists actually followed the Constitution. Take the drug war, for example. The Constitution nowhere authorizes the federal government to regulate or prohibit any drug for any reason. Yet, how many so-called constitutionalists support ending the drug war, at least on the federal level? How many “constitutional conservatives” in Congress would dare publicly say that there should be no federal laws regulating or prohibiting drugs like heroin? Only Ron Paul was bold enough to say such things when he was a member of Congress, but of course, he was a consistent constitutionalist and a libertarian.

Being a constitutionalist is not enough; being a libertarian is. A libertarian foreign policy of neutrality and nonintervention declares no immoral, unnecessary, and unjust wars. It requires no bloated military budgets. And it draws no red lines.

I think the only good thing that could be said for Obama is that he apparently loves his family. I have written on several occasions about his radical associations, his life spent in the service of racial preference, his aberrant Christianity, his warmongering, his welfare statism, his abominable heath care act, his economic ignorance, his disregard of the Constitution, his drug warring, his dangerous views on gun control, his destructive foreign policy, and his overall extreme left-wing views. I believe Obama to be one of the worst presidents in American history. He is almost as bad as George W. Bush.

I have seen it written by conservative Christians that Obama is gutting the military. Well, since the Bible says to “prove all things” (1 Thessalonians 5:21), I think we need to take a look at some facts and figures to see if this is the case or if these conservative Christians are just polluting the air with lies about a man that an abundance of negative things could already be said about.

Obama was elected in 2008 and took office in January of 2009. He was reelected in 2012. During the first two years of his first term, the Democrats controlled both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Democrats have controlled the Senate ever since; however, Republicans regained control of the House in the 2010 election, and have controlled it ever since. This means that every bill signed into law by Obama during the 112^th Congress (2011-2013), and every bill that will be signed into law by Obama during the 113^th Congress (2013-2015), was first passed, or will be passed, by the Republican-controlled House.

There are two major pieces of legislation passed by Congress every year that relate to the military: the National Defense Authorization Act and the Department of Defense Appropriations Act. Let’s look at the last three times that the Republican-controlled House passed these bills. It should be noted that the federal government’s fiscal year begins on October 1 on ends on September 30 of the following year. This means that fiscal year 2014 begins on October 1, 2013.

The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2014 (H.R.1960) was passed on June 14, 2013, by a vote of 315-108. The Republican vote was 212-18. The Department of Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2014 (H.R.2397) was passed on July 24, 2013, by a vote of 315-109. The Republican vote was 220-8. This latter bill authorizes $512.5 billion for

(1) military personnel; (2) operation and maintenance (O&M), including for the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, environmental restoration, overseas humanitarian, disaster, and civic aid, former Soviet Union cooperative threat reduction, and the DOD Acquisition Workforce Development Fund; (3) procurement, including for aircraft, missile, weapons, tracked combat vehicles, ammunition, shipbuilding and conversion, and purchases under the Defense Production Act of 1950; (4) research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E); (5) Defense Working Capital Funds and the National Defense Sealift Fund; (6) the Defense Health Program; (7) chemical agents and munitions destruction; (8) drug interdiction and counter-drug activities; (9) the Office of the Inspector General; (10) the Central Intelligence Agency Retirement and Disability System Fund; (11) the Intelligence Community Management Account; and (12) overseas deployments and related activities, including military, reserve, and National Guard personnel, O&M, the Afghanistan Infrastructure Fund, the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund, procurement, RDT&E, and the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Fund.

But according to the United States Department of Defense Fiscal Year 2014 Budget Request Overview Book, President Obama requested $526.6 billion for these purposes. This means that House Republicans approved less spending on defense than Obama requested. Looks like it is House Republicans who are gutting the military.

The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2013 (H.R.4310) was passed on December 20, 2012, by a vote of 315-107. The Republican vote was 205-30. The Department of Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2013 (H.R.5856) was passed on July 19, 2012, by a vote of 326-90. The Republican vote was 225-11.

The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2012 (H.R.1540) was passed on December 14, 2011, by a vote of 283-136. The Republican vote was 190-43. The Department of Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2012 (H.R.2219) was passed on July 19, 2012, by a vote of 336-87. The Republican vote was 224-12.

Whatever the amount of Obama’s two previous defense budgets, the fact is simply this: They could not have been set without the full support of the Republican-controlled House.

But, of course, neither Obama nor the Republicans are gutting the military at all. From the Overview Book, here are the figures for U.S. defense spending beginning with fiscal year 2001:

FY01, $287.4 billion

FY02, $328.2 billion

FY03, $364.9 billion

FY04, $376.5 billion

FY05, $400.1 billion

FY06, $410.6 billion

FY07, $431.5 billion

FY08, $479.0 billion

FY09, $513.2 billion

FY10, $527.9 billion

FY11, $528.2 billion

FY12, $529.9 billion

FY13, $527.5 billion

Obama’s first defense budget was fiscal year 2010. Rather than gutting the military, it sure looks like he is expanding the military. According to Treasury Department data: “Over the past ten fiscal years, inflation-adjusted Defense Department spending has increased by approximately 54 percent.”

What is even worse about Obama’s non-existent cuts to the military is that real defense spending, according to economist Robert Higgs of the Independent Institute, is “well in excess of $1 trillion per year for all defense-related purposes.” And according to defense analyst Winslow Wheeler, “The Pentagon’s budget has increased, over time, much more than the Defense Department tells Congress, and the public.”

But even if military spending were actually what it appears on paper to be, it is still too high. This is because the majority of U.S. military spending is for offense, not defense. The military should be gutted, as I have maintained in scores of articles on the military.

Military spending is basically a jobs program, as retired U.S. Army colonel Andrew Bacevich explains in his book Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War (Metropolitan Books, 2010):

Each year the Pentagon expends hundreds of billions of dollars to raise and support U.S. military forces. This money lubricates American politics, filling campaign coffers and providing a source of largesse – jobs and contracts – for distribution to constituents. It provides lucrative “second careers” for retired U.S. military officers hired by weapons manufacturers or by consulting firms appropriately known as “Beltway Bandits.”

So, why would conservative Christians—who consider lying to be a sin—lie about Obama gutting the military when, as I have maintained, hundreds of negative things could already be said about him?

The conclusion is inescapable: the god of some conservative Christians is the U.S. military. It is their “golden calf.” They are Christian warmongers. They are imperial Christians. They are guilty of military idolatry. Their childish devotion to the military has clouded their judgment. Lying about Obama is fine as long as it leads people to pity their gutted god.

Is Obama gutting the military? If only it were so.

And most Americans won’t even care.

Should military intervention occur, the following asinine proposition will be repeated ad nauseam just like a version of it has been repeated incessantly ever since U.S. troops invaded Iraq and Afghanistan:

I don’t support the U.S. military intervening in Syria, but I support the troops.

This is utter nonsense. This is pious drivel. This is idiocy on parade. This is lunacy.

Yet, even though the majority of Americans say they don’t want war with Syria, the majority of them will still say we should support the troops, pray for the troops, and thank the troops for their service.

Sometimes an attempt is made to justify this nonsense, drivel, idiocy, and lunacy by supplementing it with one or more of the following:

• The troops are just following orders.
• Old men make wars, but young men fight them.
• The troops have a duty to serve the country when they are called upon.
• Military intervention is the fault of the politicians, not the soldiers.
• It is better to fight “over there” instead of “over here.”
• Whatever the troops do in Syria is the fault of Obama the commander in chief.
• The troops didn’t ask to go to Syria.
• There are a lot of good people in the military.
• The troops will go fight where they are told because they are patriotic.
• The troops are not responsible for where they are sent.
• Many soldiers had no choice but to join the military since they could not find a job.
• U.S. soldiers only kill those who try to kill them.

But none of these change anything; the proposition is still nonsense, drivel, idiocy, and lunacy.

You can’t support the troops without supporting what they do; you can’t separate soldiers from solidering.

Reciting this asinine proposition about supporting the troops is just like saying:

• I don’t support garbage men emptying the trash, but I support them as garbage men.
• I don’t support doctors performing abortions, but I support them as doctors.
• I don’t support landscapers mowing the grass, but I support them as landscapers.
• I don’t support TSA agents groping passengers, but I support them as TSA agents.

Sounds ridiculous, I know; but why doesn’t the asinine proposition about soldiers sound just as ridiculous?

The primary job of a soldier is to destroy infrastructure and make widows and orphans—whenever he is told to do so and without questioning his orders. Perhaps killing people they shouldn’t kill and breaking things they shouldn’t break wasn’t always the top priority of U.S. soldiers, but it certainly is now. Since World War II, the U.S. military has been used exclusively for purposes other than the actual defense of the country. And if that weren’t bad enough, most of these purposes have been nefarious and offensive. Since World War II, U.S. soldiers have functioned exclusively as the president’s personal attack force staffed by mercenaries willing to obey his latest command to bomb, invade, occupy, and otherwise bring death and destruction to any country he deems necessary.

When U.S. troops go to Syria, and people say that they support the troops but not their mission in Syria, what exactly will we supposed to think they mean? Will they be saying that they

• support the troops painting equipment?
• support the troops marching in formation on the base?
• support the troops cleaning their weapons?
• support the troops making their beds?
• support the troops sweeping the floor in their barracks?
• support the troops working out?
• support the troops performing vehicle maintenance?
• support the troops washing the fighter jets?

Are any of these things reason why U.S. troops returning home from Syria will be applauded in airports? Then how is it that people can say they support the troops but not their mission?

The ultimate reason why senseless U.S. foreign wars take place is not because of the president, the Congress, and the politicians; it is because there is no shortage of Americans willing to bomb, maim, destroy, and kill for the state in order to collect a government paycheck. And to the extent that patriotism has anything to do with it—cursed be that patriotism.

I don’t support the troops. And I don’t support asinine propositions. Do you?

To get an idea of Ronald Sider’s perspective in this book, we might begin with a look at the man Jim Wallis, the president and CEO of Sojourners, calls “one of our country’s most important public theologians.”

Sider is a noted evangelical who has written more than 30 books, including Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger (InterVarsity Press, 1977), which was named as one of the 100 most influential books in religion in the 20th century. He is currently the professor of Theology, Holistic Ministry and Public Policy at Palmer Theological Seminary, the seminary of Eastern University in Pennsylvania. But Sider is also the founder and president of Evangelicals for Social Action, a think tank that promotes “peace with justice for the oppressed and marginalized throughout the world” by combining “biblical scholarship with astute policy analysis to further economic wholeness, support multilateral rather than unilateral U.S. foreign policy, promote racial and ecological justice, and generally try to make the world a better place.”

Most recently, Sider publicly resigned from AARP, not because he thinks Social Security and Medicare are intergenerational wealth-redistribution schemes, but because AARP is “selfish and guilty of intergenerational injustice.” He favors increased Social Security payments for lower income Americans, higher Social Security taxes, modest cuts in benefits for seniors with higher incomes, and increases in the payments that seniors with higher incomes make for Medicare.

Just Politics: A Guide for Christian Engagement (hereafter Just Politics) is actually a new edition of an earlier work titled The Scandal of Evangelical Politics that was published in 2008. I wholeheartedly accept two statements that Sider makes in the preface to his first edition (which is printed in this second edition):

Tragically, Christian political activity today is a disaster. Christians embrace contradictory positions on almost every political issue.

At the heart of the problem is the fact that many Christians, especially evangelical Christians, have not thought very carefully about how to do politics in a wise, biblically grounded way.

Unfortunately, Sider’s new edition doesn’t offer correct solutions to these problems any more than his original edition did. In fact, his recommendations in Just Politics are not only contradictory, unwise, and unbiblical, they are just nonsense.

In the preface to his new edition, Sider mainly offers brief comments on the “flood of books on politics by evangelical authors” that have appeared since his first edition. I reviewed here one of the books he mentions, Politics—According to the Bible (Zondervan, 2010), by Wayne Grudem. Although I found fault with some of Grudem’s conservative political ideas (I titled the review “Republican Politics According to the Bible”), I certainly didn’t chastise him for his “constantly negative critique in virtually all references to President Obama” like Sider does.

This second edition of Sider’s book is enhanced by subject and Scripture indexes. The thirteen chapters are titled the same, except for the rearrangement of the words in the title of chapter 3. Unfortunately, the new edition has the chapters arranged into the same grossly unbalanced four parts as the first. I say this because parts 1 and 4 each have only one 8-page chapter and part 2 contains just two chapters. This leaves part 3 with nine chapters that take up most of the book.

To being with, I see only four things in the entire book that Sider can be commended for. He opposes abortion, euthanasia, thoughtless and uncritical nationalism, and American exceptionalism. Really, that’s it. Here is the best statement in the whole book: “It is blasphemous idolatry to claim that the United States—or any other nation—is God’s new Israel to redeem the world.” The problem is that Sider makes a thousand other statements that are either not so good or just nonsense.

Sider seems to recognize the true nature of the state:

The state is that organization in society that has a monopoly on the use of coercion to help it achieve its purpose of overseeing just relationships among the individuals and institutions in the society.

It is a historical fact that virtually every state has tried to exercise a monopoly on lethal force to compel obedience to its laws and protect its borders.”

The state alone has the authority and power to use coercion to enforce its laws in every area of society.

It is a historical fact that, almost without exception, no state has tried to govern without lethal violence.

But then he says: “The state is a gift from God, not an invention of Satan.” It is “a crucial element of a good society.”

I have no problem with Sider’s biblical references to justice, but I take issue with his scope of biblical justice:

Biblical justice, however, also includes socioeconomic benefits, which are the responsibility of the community to guarantee.

When people cannot care for themselves, justice demands that their community provide a generous sufficiency so that their needs are met.

Sider believes that “social-economic rights are basic human rights.” This includes the right to food, productive assets, private property, health care, education, work, shelter, and clothing.

Sider’s fatal flaw is that when individuals, institutions, society, or the community doesn’t sufficiently provide these things, it is up to the state to do so:

When other individuals and institutions in the community do not or cannot provide basic necessities for the needy, the state rightly helps.

When indirect approaches are not effective in restraining economic injustice or in providing care for those who cannot care for themselves, the state must act directly to demand patterns of justice and to provide vital services.

Yet, he seems to argue against this when he says: “Any policy or political philosophy that immediately seeks state solutions for problems that could be solved just as well (or better) at the level of family violates the biblical framework that stresses the central societal role of the family.” And he even acknowledges that “behind every law and collection of taxes to fund social programs stands an implicit threat to use lethal violence.”

Justice according to Sider is the state taking—by deadly force if necessary—resources from some Americans and giving them to other Americans.

Sider is obsessed with public education:

One of the most important ways to implement the biblical teaching on justice is to offer quality education to all children regardless of race or family income.

Justice for the poor, in fact, demands that the state does pay for quality education, at least for the poorer sectors of society.

But it’s not just government schools he supports; it is government funding of education. He has no problem with the use of “tax dollars to pay for the costs of private schools chosen by parents up to an equal amount to that spent per pupil in government-operated schools.” Not surprisingly, Sider doesn’t stop with education: “Since the state also promotes the common good, a wide variety of laws for this purpose are also legitimate: to build transportation systems that everyone can use, to guarantee that all children have access to quality education, and to ensure that all citizens enjoy an appropriate level of health care.” He also supports using the tax code to encourage marriage and discourage divorce.

Sider deplores individualism, John Locke, and libertarianism. He condemns the “libertarian argument” that “caring for the poor is a task for individuals, religious groups, and private charities—not the state.” He likewise argues that “there is no basis in biblical thought to argue that the state should have no role in caring for and empowering poor people.”

Sider is not a fan of the free market either:

Market economies are simply failing to meet the biblical demand that everyone has access to productive resources.

Market economics tend to produce a consumeristic materialism that promotes devastating cultural decay.

He is especially troubled about market economies “becoming more and more unequal in distribution of wealth.”

Sider’s solution is, of course, more government intervention: “One important thing we need is the right kind of state intervention to correct the injustice in today’s market economies.” If done in the right way, “government intervention can correct the injustices in a market economy without destroying the basic market framework.” Sider sounds like George W. Bush, who told CNN: “I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system.” If you oppose “government modification of supply and demand,” then it means you “worship a laissez-faire economic system rather than the God who is Lord of economics.”

It is Sider who embraces contradictory positions on political issues. First he sounds like a libertarian:

Not all that the Bible condemns should become a criminal offense punished by the state.

In a pluralistic society, people should be free to do many things that others consider stupid or sinful.

If our laws require the police and the courts to discover and punish sinful sexual behavior (whether adultery or homosexual sex) between consenting adults, we will violate personal freedoms and move toward a police state.

But then he says he supports laws against the use of heroin and cocaine, but not alcohol, because laws against it cannot be enforced. But Sider doesn’t stop with drugs: “Christians must work for effective laws that prevent tobacco advertisements, forbid smoking in most public buildings and facilities, and educate the public on the dangers of smoking.” He actually includes smoking in a list with abortion, euthanasia, starvation, and capital punishment as destroying “persons created in the image of God “

Sider is also an environmentalist wacko—or do I repeat myself? It is not just that he recommends that everyone “reduce, reuse, and recycle (in that order),” use public transportation, and buy a fuel-efficient vehicle. Sider also believes that “our present behavior threatens the well-being of the entire planet.” He says that “we must act vigorously to combat climate change.” He supports “a heavy carbon tax.” He feels that “wealthy nations must be ready to slow their economic growth, if it is necessary, to restore a sustainable environment for our grandchildren.” It is not right “for a nation to keep all its wealth (even if it created all that wealth in entirely just ways) exclusively for its own use.” It should be redistributed to the world through “more generous” foreign aid.

Sider says some okay things about war and U.S. foreign policy (I actually recommend a book he edited, The Early Church on War and Killing (Baker Academic, 2012), but negates them all with this ridiculous defense of Obama: ““With the installation of President Barack Obama in 2009, American foreign policy changed significantly.” For a contrary view, see my many articles on U.S. foreign policy.

Sider says in the beginning of the book that Christians need a political philosophy, but not one adopted uncritically from some non-Christian source. I agree, and have articulated support for a Christian libertarian political philosophy here and here. One might say that it is the “just liberty” alternative to Sider’s collectivist, socialist, redistributionist, interventionist, and anti-biblical “just nonsense.”

I am not complaining, and am honored to be addressed as such.

I only bring this up because, since I often write about Christian themes, I sometimes get e-mails in which I am addressed as Pastor Vance, Father Vance, Rev. Vance, or Preacher Vance. I also occasionally get e-mails in which reference is made to my church or my congregation or my ministry.

I am a conservative, Bible-believing Christian, and am no stranger to preaching, teaching, and church work, and have written a number of Christian books, but I don’t want to give people the impression that I am something I am not.

So, I am not a pastor; however, if I were a pastor, and if I did have a congregation to lead, there are some things that I would never allow to take place in the church on my watch. Here are seven of them.

First of all, if I were a pastor, there would be no flags of any kind on the platform, on the walls of the church, on a flagpole, stuck in the ground, or anywhere on the property. Not even on the Sunday before Flag Day, the Fourth of July, Memorial Day, Armed Forces Day, or Veterans Day. And not even at a funeral for a veteran if held in the church. And not only would there be no American flag, there would also be no Israeli flag or “Christian” flag. But even if the church had an American flag on the platform because of years of following mindless tradition, I would not lead the congregation in the Pledge of Allegiance. I would, of course, point out that the Pledge was written by a socialist Baptist minister.

Second, if I were a pastor, there would be no hymns sung to or about the state. No “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee,” no “America the Beautiful,” no “We Salute You, Land of Liberty,” no “This Is My Country,” no “You’re a Grand Old Flag,” no “Star-Spangled Banner,” no “God Bless America,” no “God Bless the U.S.A.” And certainly not the blasphemous “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Not even on the Sunday before Flag Day, the Fourth of July, Memorial Day, Armed Forces Day, and Veterans Day.

Third, if I were a pastor, there would be no invoking the Jewish wars of the Old Testament against the heathen as a justification for the actions of the U.S. government and its military. Just because God sponsored these wars, and used the Jewish nation to conduct them, does not mean that God sponsors American wars or that America is God’s chosen nation. The U.S. president is not God, America is not the nation of Israel, the U.S. military is not the Lord’s army, and the Lord God never sanctioned any Christian to go on a crusade, commanded him to war on his behalf, or encouraged him to kill, make apologies for the killing of, or excuse the killing of any adherent to a false religion.

Fourth, if I were a pastor, there would be no American statolatry. Romans 13 would never be invoked to justify support for the U.S. government and its wars. There would be no special September 11th commemoration service. The sins of America would not be downplayed because of blind nationalism or American exceptionalism.

Fifth, if I were a pastor, there would be no political activity. This means no Christian Coalition or Focus on the Family voting guides on the back table, no introducing local candidates who claim to be Christians, no promoting candidates, no promoting the Republican Party, no appeals to fax members of Congress about impending legislation, no running for office or encouraging others to do so, no voter registration drives, no reminding the congregation to vote, and certainly no letting the county use the church buildings as a polling place.

Sixth, if I were a pastor, there would be no special law enforcement appreciation days. State and local law enforcement personnel are just as aggressive, militarized, and on the lookout for victimless crimes as their federal counterparts. (See here for the latest outrages.) I would no sooner have an appreciation day for them than I would for FBI, TSA, and DEA agents. Law enforcement personnel would, of course, be welcome to attend services, they would just be encouraged to fight real crime instead of victimless crime, to not set up speed traps and sting operations, and to lay off the doughnuts.

And last, but not least, if I were a pastor, there would be no special recognition given to current or former members of the military. All veterans and active duty military personnel would, of course, be welcome to attend services, just as all pimps, prostitutes, pushers, and politicians would be welcomed. There would be no special military appreciation services. No veterans would be encouraged to wear their uniforms to church on the Sunday before Veterans Day. No veterans would be recognized on the Sunday before Veterans Day. I would instead briefly explain its origin as Armistice Day, and talk about the folly of World War I and how the United States was led into it by a sorry excuse for a Christian named Woodrow Wilson. Not only would I not introduce to the church any young person in the congregation who joined the military, I would actively persuade them from joining. As a pastor, I would be disappointed and ashamed if any young person in my congregation joined the military. There would be no prayers for the troops to be kept out of harm’s way while they defend our freedoms. There would instead be prayers that the troops didn’t harm anyone in an unjust war and that they would come home from foreign military interventions and overseas bases.

I don’t get very many invitations to speak in churches. Now you know seven reasons why.

Democrats have controlled the U.S. Senate since the 110th Congress began in January of 2007. The Senate is currently composed of 52 Democrats, 46 Republicans, and 2 Independents (Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine) who both caucus with the Democrats. But even though Republicans in the Senate are the opposition party, they aren’t living up to the conservative principles they claim to adhere to.

So, my question for every Republican is simply this: How “conservative” is your senator?

Fortunately, this is an easy thing to determine. But since most Republicans don’t bother to check the conservative credentials of those whom they put in office, I will do it for them.

Every three months, the New American magazine publishes a congressional scorecard based on the Constitution called “The Freedom Index.” It rates congressmen “based on their adherence to constitutional principles of limited government, fiscal responsibility, national sovereignty, and a traditional foreign policy of avoiding foreign entanglements.” The first index for the 113^th Congress has just been released.

Since Republicans are always talking about their fiscal conservatism and fidelity to the Constitution, “The Freedom Index” seems like a good way to put them to the test.

A senator’s score is determined by dividing his good; that is, constitutional, votes on ten representative bills by the total number of good and bad votes he cast, and then multiplying the answer by 100 to turn it into a percent. The closer a senator’s score is to 100, the more “conservative” he is.

The votes tracked this time were concerning Hurricane Sandy disaster relief, increasing the debt limit, the Keystone XL Pipeline, a balanced-budget resolution, the UN Arms Trade Treaty, an “assault weapons” ban, a high-capacity clip ban, Internet sales tax, product labeling for genetically modified food, and farm programs (including funding for food stamps).

The average Senate score is 41 percent. Only two Democrats (Begich of Alaska and Manchin of West Virginia) received a passing score of 60 or above. A few Democrats scored a big fat zero—as we might expect.

But what we don’t expect is for the average score of Republicans to be a dismal 70.64 percent. Eight Republicans have a failing score; that is, below 60. Eleven of them have a 60—just barely above failing. This means that 19 Republicans scored lower than the 2 Democrats who received a passing score. Only 1 Republican senator, Jeff Flake of Arizona, scored a 100. The darling of conservatives, Marco Rubio, only scored an 80—that is a B-. Even Utah’s Orin Hatch scored an 80. Poor John McCain—he scored a 56. I wonder how many conservatives voted for him for president in 2008? Would McCain have been any better than Obama? I argue no here.

Senate Republicans would have scored even worse had “The Freedom Index” tracked any votes this time that related to foreign affairs. Just look at the recent 86-13 vote in the Senate against Rand Paul’s proposal to cut off foreign aid to Egypt. The Republican vote was 33-13.

It is a myth that electing more Republicans to the Senate so that the GOP can control both houses of Congress would make the country better off. If you think Republicans are bad as the opposition party, you ought to see how bad they are when they are in the majority. Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency for over four years under George W. Bush and what did it do for America but put us on the road to bigger government, further indebtedness, increased spending, and more tyranny. Almost every bad policy of Obama can be traced back to the Bush years.

But it’s not just the national government. We have had more Republicans elected to office on the federal, state, and local levels in the last twenty years than at any time in recent memory and probably not since Reconstruction. Republicans even control the House, Senate, and governorship in several states. Yet, we have more government, more government debt, more government spending, and more government tyranny at all levels than ever before—EPA, TSA, DHS, NSA, DEA, IRS, FBI, foreign military interventions, drone strikes, drug war, police brutality, etc.

Why on earth would anyone, and especially libertarians, think that voting Republican at any level would solve any problem or make things any better?

Although I don’t use marijuana for medical, recreational, or scientific purposes, I highly recommend this book to every reader no matter how he wants to use or not use marijuana or what he thinks about the ethics and morality of marijuana use and the medical effectiveness and therapeutic benefits of marijuana.

I know that I am putting things backward. A reviewer’s endorsement of a book is usually implied during the course of a review and certainly stated in no uncertain terms at the end of the review. But this book is so good, so important, and so necessary that I am stating right up front that if you never read anything ever again about the war on drugs, including my book, The War on Drugs Is a War on Freedom, or anything I have written about the federal war on marijuana or hemp, and even including the rest of this review, this is the one book that you must read. It is the most important book ever written about marijuana.

Although it is a well-written and engaging book, Smoke Signals is not an easy read. First of all, it is over 500 pages. Even not counting the index, acknowledgments, notes, bibliography, and appendices, it is still over 400 pages. You will not read this book in an afternoon. Because of so many other reading and writing commitments, I actually read the book over the course of many months. But I assure you that it will be worth the time you put into reading it. The second reason it is not an easy read is because, for all but the most intransigent liberal or conservative statist, the reader will early on find the federal war on drugs, and especially marijuana, to be so bizarre, unnecessary, so perplexing, so asinine, and so evil that it is sometimes hard to keep reading without slamming the book shut and pulling out your hair.

I can hardly do justice to the book in the following brief distillation, but will make an attempt.

No one—even diehard libertarians like me that favor absolute drug freedom—can read this book and not come away with an entirely new perspective of, and even an appreciation for, the cannabis plant and those who—for whatever reason—have agitated and do agitate for its legal and unregulated, recreational, euphoric, therapeutic, industrial, scientific use and/or its curative and preventive medical use. But the reader will also come away with something else—a disgust, a loathing, and an abhorrence of not only the federal, state, and local war on drugs, but the FBI, state and federal DEA (and their precursors), state police, and local cops who enforce the nation’s ridiculous drug laws.

The cannabis plant was introduced to the western hemisphere in the 16^th century through the slave trade. In the form of hemp, it was one of the first crops cultivated by the Puritans. Strange that ardent support of the drug war is one of the marks of a contemporary Puritan. Hemp farming had an important role in American history. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper. Hemp served as legal tender. It supplied fiber to make uniforms for George Washington’s soldiers. Washington was himself a hemp farmer. “Sow it everywhere,” he implored.

But it is not the just industrial use of the cannabis plant that was well known. It served as a multi-purpose medicine. It was used to treat ailments for which there were no known cures. It was an analgesic that also inhibited nausea and vomiting. The first official U.S. government study of cannabis was conducted by the Ohio State Medical Society in 1860. It cataloged an array of medical conditions that doctors had successfully treated with psychoactive hemp.

Before the twentieth century, there were no laws restricting the cultivation, sale, or use of any form of the cannabis plant. I emphasize that we are talking about a plant. A plant that putting in your living room merely because you like the way it looks or smells can land you in jail. Before the twentieth century, there was no stigma attached to having or using cannabis. Anyone could walk into a pharmacy in America and purchase a range of cannabis tinctures and pastes. Now you can’t even buy Sudafed without being accused of being a meth dealer. Before the twentieth century, cannabis was no cause for alarm. It was not viewed as habit forming, inducing violence mind destroying, addictive, or a gateway to other drugs (which were all also perfectly legal).

Things soon began to change, however, with the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which required that the inclusion of cannabis (along with other intoxicating ingredients) in any substance had to be identified on the product label. But as Lee points out: “While well intended, the law gave unprecedented power to federal bureaucrats to decide which drugs a person would be allowed to consume.” Under the Act, “U.S. officials would prohibit the importation of cannabis for anything other than strictly medical purposes.” In 1914 El Paso, Texas, became the first city to ban the sale and possession of cannabis. California followed in 1915, joined by the whole state of Texas in 1919. But as Lee explains: “The first laws against marijuana in the United States were primarily a racist reaction against Mexican migrants.”

Meanwhile, the Harrison Act of 1914 further expanded federal control over narcotics like opiates or cocaine. There was now a legal distinction between medical and recreational drug use. Then the Narcotic Farms Act of 1929 classified “Indian hemp” as “habit-forming narcotic.” In 1930 the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) was formed. Its first director was the ardent drug warrior, Harry Anslinger. Although marijuana had already been banned in twenty-four U.S. states, he sought further action on the federal level. He called marijuana “the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.” But he also crusaded against marijuana to increase the funding and relevance of the FBN. He had help from newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst, who was also obsessed with marijuana. The ideas of Anslinger and Hearst paralleled those of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, regimes that waged war on drug use. Because the word cannabis was familiar to Americans as a medicinal substance, the name marijuana (or marihuana) was popularized during the Depression. Anslinger exaggerated the incidence of marijuana use and depicted the evil weed as making Black and Mexican men lust after White women. Low-budget exploitation flicks were financed by marijuana’s competitors—major distilling companies. Although the medical use of cannabis had been supplanted by newer medicines, the Marihuana Tax Act was passed by voice vote in 1937. It effectively banned all forms of cannabis through prohibitive taxation.

Anslinger had opposition from some unlikely sources. The U.S. government promoted “Hemp for Victory” during World War II. Farmers were urged to grow hemp to support the war effort—hemp cloth for parachutes and hemp rope for battleships. The 1948 report of the LaGuardia committee examined and debunked virtually every anti-marijuana claim of Anslinger. It concluded that it was incorrect to call marijuana a narcotic and that “prolonged use of the drug does not lead to physical, mental or moral degeneration.” Marijuana use was not addictive, and did not cause insanity, sexual deviance, violence, or criminal misconduct.

Nevertheless, the American Medical Association (AMA) joined the crusade against marijuana in the mid 1940s. And because the FBN controlled licenses for opiate importation, the American Pharmaceutical Association capitulated as well. In 1951, the Boggs Amendment increased penalties for narcotics offenses and made no distinction between drug users and traffickers. The war on drugs did not begin with President Nixon. In the 1950s, President Eisenhower called for “a new war on narcotics addiction at the local, national and international level.” The Narcotics Control Act in 1954 further increased the penalties for marijuana possession. J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI attacked marijuana as well. A user “becomes a fiend with savage ‘cave man’ tendencies. His sex desires are aroused and some of the most horrible crimes result.” The U.S. government formally ratified the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs in 1968. It required all signatories to adopt and maintain domestic legislation and penal measures against cannabis and other drugs.

Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act in 1970. Marijuana was classified as a Schedule I narcotic—just like heroin and LSD. Lee points out that “1,899 Americans died from illegal drugs in 1970” and that “far more Americans died that year from food poisoning and falling down stairs.” Nixon rejected without reading the Shafer Commission report titled “Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding.” It was the most comprehensive review of cannabis ever conducted by the federal government. The report found no evidence that marijuana caused physical or psychological harm. “Neither the marijuana user nor the drug itself can be said to constitute a danger to public safety,” the report concluded. The war on marijuana thoroughly corrupted the police. Marijuana laws “provided police with all the leverage they needed to harass young people, racial minorities, and anyone else with nonregulation haircuts.”

There was a little reprieve under President Carter, who told Congress in 1978: “Penalties against drug use should not be more damaging to the individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear that in the laws against possession of marijuana in private for personal use.” And then came President Reagan, who asserted that marijuana was “the most dangerous drug in America.” He called for a “full scale anti-drug mobilization” and a “nationwide crusade” to rid America of the scourge of drug use. He boasted that we were going to win the war on drugs. Like Nixon before him, he ignored a 1982 study from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) that found “no convincing evidence” that marijuana damages the brain or nervous system or decreases fertility.” The report called for the decriminalization of marijuana. Thanks to the war on drugs, the police state escalated under Reagan. In 1984, Congress again raised federal penalties for marijuana under the Comprehensive Crime Control Act. It also made it easier for the police to seize the property of suspected pot dealers. The drug war was now self-perpetuating. Prescription tranquilizer addict Nancy Reagan urged children to “Just Say No.” Also in the 1980s, Daryl Gates, the L.A. police chief who maintained that casual drug users were guilty of “treason” and should be “taken out and shot,” founded the D.A.R.E. program—a complete fraud according to Salt Lake City mayor Ross Anderson.

President Bush the elder appointed nicotine addict and modern Puritan William Bennett to be America’s first “drug czar.” Bush announced a major escalation of the war on drugs in a televised speech from the Oval Office in 1989. Like Nixon and Reagan, he too ignored the results of government investigations into the benefits of cannabis.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the point: the war on drugs, and especially marijuana, is a great evil from start to finish.

Smoke Signals is full of medical and scientific information. Lee tells of Israeli scientist Raphael Mechoulam, who, in 1964, first synthesized THC, marijuana’s principal psychoactive ingredient. He recounts numerous medical and government studies that show the benefits of cannabis. Dr. Tod Mikuriya found that increased marijuana use correlated with a reduction in a far deadly activity—alcohol consumption. He also concluded that marijuana was an exit drug, not a gateway drug. The publication of Mikuriya’s compendium of research on marijuana in 1973 marks the beginning of the modern medical marijuana movement. Lee talks about cannabinoids, terpenoids, flavonoids, and other things that I had never heard of. He tells of studies that showed that marijuana worked as an appetite stimulant, dampened nausea, quelled seizures, stopped asthma attacks, and relived pain. This book truly has a wide range of information about marijuana and its history that readers with diverse interests will profit from.

Are there any negative things about this book? Yes, just two, but they concern matters of style, not substance. It is impossible to tell which chapter you are in. Instead of the usual format of the book title in the left-hand page headers and the chapter title in the right-hand ones, the author’s name appears on the left and the book’s title on the right. The other issue I have is that, although the book has sixty-seven pages of notes, there are no numbers in the text to indicate that something appears in the notes. When you turn to the notes and look up a page number, you are presented with partial quotes from the text in bold print followed by a source. But as I said, these are matters of style, not substance.

According to the DEA’s chief administrative law judge in 1988: “Marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man.” So why is it illegal? Read Smoke Signals to find out. But don’t just read it; digest it, and inhale it as Obama said he inhaled when he was in college.

The budgets passed earlier this year by the Republican-controlled House and Democratic-controlled Senate each called for spending about $6 trillion on national defense over the next ten years. This is even though, according to Treasury Department data, “Over the past ten fiscal years, inflation-adjusted Defense Department spending has increased by approximately 54 percent.”

But as economist Robert Higgs of the Independent Institute concluded after his analysis of the fiscal year 2009 defense budget: “The government is currently spending at a rate well in excess of $1 trillion per year for all defense-related purposes.” This would include supplemental war appropriations and the defense-related spending of NASA and the departments of Justice, Homeland Security, Energy, State, the Treasury, and Veterans Affairs, as well as the interest expense on the national debt attributable to defense spending. This means that real defense spending accounts for about 25 percent of the federal budget.

But even using just the stated defense budget, U.S. defense spending dwarfs that of the rest of the world. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Yearbook 2012, which includes a list on the world’s top 15 military spenders in 2011, the United States spends almost as much on defense as every other country combined. The United States spends about five times as much as China and ten times as much as Russia.

According to a report by the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States wasted $12 million per day fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But it’s not just that the military wastes money. As Ron Paul said in an interview on Face the Nation: “Those troops overseas aggravate our enemies, motivate our enemies. I think it’s a danger to national defense, and we can save a lot of money cutting out the military expenditures that contribute nothing to our defense.”

What is so mind boggling about the United States maintaining an empire of troops and bases around the world and spending so much money on “defense” is that America has been blessed with natural national defense.

It’s called the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Thomas Jefferson recognized this over 200 years ago:

At such a distance from Europe and with such an ocean between us, we hope to meddle little in its quarrels or combinations. Its peace and its commerce are what we shall court

The insulated state in which nature has placed the American continent should so far avail it that no spark of war kindled in the other quarters of the globe should be wafted across the wide oceans which separate us from them.

But rather than view the ocean as a defensive bulwark, naval historian and imperialist Alfred Mahan (1840-1914) instead compared it to a “great highway.” Beginning with the Spanish-American War, the United States rejected the foreign policy of John Quincy Adams and went abroad searching for monsters to destroy.

The first step to end the destructive and immoral interventionist foreign policy of the United States is to bring the troops home and keep them home.

In his suggested “Amendment for Peace,” Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler (1881-1940) proposed the following three points:

1. The removal of members of the land armed forces from within the continental limits of the United States and the Panama Canal Zone for any cause whatsoever is hereby prohibited.

2. The vessels of the United States Navy, or of the other branches of the armed service, are hereby prohibited from steaming, for any reason whatsoever except on an errand of mercy, more than five hundred miles from our coast.

3. Aircraft of the Army, Navy and Marine Corps is hereby prohibited from flying, for any reason whatsoever, more than seven hundred and fifty miles beyond the coast of the United States.

 Butler maintained that such an amendment “linked with adequate naval and military defenses at home, would guarantee everlasting peace to our nation.”

“How would such an amendment insure peace?” he asked, and then answered:

In the first place, the United States is in no danger whatever of military invasion. Even the Navy and Army Departments, which are always preparing for war, and the State Department, which is always talking about peace but thinking about war, agree on that. By reason of our geographical position, it is all but impossible for any foreign power to muster, transport and land sufficient troops on our shores for a successful invasion.

There is another bar to any invasion of the United States by the political dimensions abroad, which prohibit any one nation from leaving its own borders unguarded in order to make war on a foe three thousand or six thousand miles distant. Yet if, by some incomprehensible diplomatic hocus pocus, an agreement could be reached among certain foreign powers whereby they would forget their own differences for the time being and pool their resources in a joint effort against the United States, there still would be very little fear of successful invasion.

Our fleet, bound by this Peace Amendment to stay close to home shores, would be on hand to repel such invasion at sea: if, through some series of unforeseen circumstances or disasters, an enemy army did succeed in landing on our shores — the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific — the entire manpower of this nation would spring to arms. Every American, every man and boy, would be ready, without conscription, without pleading — every American would be ready to grasp a rifle and rush forth to defend his home and his country.

Butler also reasoned that:

The efficiency of our navy can be maintained by maneuvers a few hundred miles off our own coast just as well as it can be maintained by maneuvers thousands of miles away, and almost in Japan’s back yard, where our navy conducted its main maneuvers last year.

THERE is nothing un-American in the Peace Amendment. When our forefathers planned this government, they foresaw no necessity for preparing for wars in Europe: for wars that didn’t concern us. As a matter of fact, after the Revolutionary War had been won and after the new United States Government was established, our army and navy were eliminated. There was no provision for an army or a navy. True, we had a militia. That is, each state had its own militia. We still have them. We call them National Guards now. But the militia, the only armed force in the United States at that time, was not to be used beyond the territorial limits of the United States.

 That’s what our army and navy should be. Home defenders, ready and able to defend our homes, to defend us against attack — that’s all.

 The efficiency of our navy can be maintained by maneuvers a few hundred miles off our own coast just as well as it can be maintained by maneuvers thousands of miles away, and almost in Japan’s back yard, where our navy conducted its main maneuvers last year.

Thomas Jefferson or John McCain? John Adams or Lindsey Graham? Alfred Mahan or Smedley Butler? The Pentagon or the ocean? Which one is better for defense?

On Tuesday, March 26, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for and against California’s Proposition 8, a ballot initiative passed in 2008 that eliminated the right of same-sex couples to marry that the California Supreme Court had recognized.

On Wednesday, March 27, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the merits and demerits of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), federal legislation passed in 1996 that defined marriage as only “a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife” and that permits states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.

On June 26, 2013, the Supreme Court ruled that the section of DOMA that defined marriage (sec. 3) was unconstitutional, thus ending the ban on same-sex married couples being recognized as married and eligible to receive federal benefits. The Court also let stand a 2010 federal district court ruling that declared Proposition 8 to be unconstitutional.

Conservatives who believe in traditional marriage and consider the term “same-sex marriage” to be an oxymoron are disturbed by the Supreme Court’s rulings. This is not generally because they find fault with any legal or constitutional arguments, but because the Court did not, in their eyes, rule in favor of traditional marriage—legal and constitutional arguments be damned.

But conservatives are also disturbed by what they see as libertarian support for same-sex marriage. This is not generally because they find fault with any arguments about individual liberty and the proper role of government, but because libertarians are not, in their eyes, upholding traditional marriage—philosophical arguments be damned.

The issue of same-sex marriage is one of three, the other two being abortion and drug legalization, that I believe keeps some conservatives from becoming libertarians.

When I say conservatives, I don’t mean political conservatives who blindly follow Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and Mark Levin, and watch Fox News. The only limited government they want is a government limited to one controlled by conservatives in the Republican Party.

When I say conservatives, I do mean social conservatives, many of whom are religious, mainly nominally Christian, but also theological conservatives. Their feelings about homosexuality, abortion, and drug use range from disapproval to disgust. They may “lean libertarian” on economic issues, have a healthy skepticism of the political process, loathe the size and scope of the federal government, and even espouse a noninterventionist foreign policy, or at least a healthy Buchanan-esque reserved foreign policy. They are good candidates for libertarians, and would be more interested in libertarianism were it not for some libertarians equating the agitation for same-sex marriage as a battle for human rights, terming abortion a woman’s right to choose or expelling a trespasser or parasite, and/or and extolling the joys of the recreational use of marijuana.

When I say libertarians, I mean those who believe that a free, just, and peaceful society is grounded in the nonaggression principle—that it is always wrong to threaten or employ violence against someone except in defense of one’s person or property. And it is just as wrong for the government to do it, and even worse, considering its vast resources and the incredible damage it can do. Libertarianism is a political philosophy that is concerned with the proper use of force. The only proper role of coercion or violence is to defend person and property against coercion or violence. These should not be used against anyone who has not himself deprived someone of life, liberty, or property. This does not mean that coercion or violence should actually be employed, just that it might rightly be. Coercion or violence that goes beyond just defense is unjust aggression. Peaceful and consensual activity should never be aggressed against. But, of course, this doesn’t mean that all such activity is moral, wholesome, and beneficial.

It is no wonder that some conservatives have mischaracterized libertarianism—some libertarians have done the same thing. Libertarianism cannot be simplistically defined as “fiscally conservative, socially liberal.” Libertarianism is a philosophy of life, not a lifestyle. Libertarians who view libertarianism as more of a social attitude than a political theory are making it something it is not. No one is more libertarian than someone else because he celebrates more alternative lifestyles rather than tolerates them.

Although some conservatives have mischaracterized libertarianism as depreciating tradition, rejecting religion, and disdaining morality, nothing could be further from the truth. I believe it is entirely possible to be a resolute social and theological conservative and at the same time be an uncompromising and hardcore libertarian.

Conservatives can and should be libertarians because there is nothing inherently libertarian about same-sex marriage, legalized abortion, or recreational drug use.

Same-Sex Marriage

Same-sex marriage is now legal in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia. Section 2 of DOMA, which was not ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court (although I believe it eventually will be), allows the 37 other states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in these 13 states (and Washington D.C.). However, since the federal government now recognizes same-sex marriages performed in these states, it is only just a matter of time before Uncle Sam sticks his nose further into the institution of marriage and imposes uniformity on the entire country.

But even if every state in the union legalized same-sex marriage, that still wouldn’t make it a marriage. Fulton J. Sheen, the Catholic television preacher of the 1950s, although not talking about marriage, said something profound that illustrates perfectly what I am saying: “I am free to draw a triangle if I give it three sides, but not, in a stroke of broad-mindedness, fifty-seven sides.” You are free to call your cat a dog, but that doesn’t mean you have the right to enter your cat in dog shows.

Marriage has always been and will forever be the union of a man and a woman—anything else is just cohabitation and fornication.

Now, as a libertarian, I am for absolute freedom of contract: partnerships, unions, agreements, arrangements, pacts, compacts, conventions, relationships, associations, companionships, contracts—between anyone: homosexuals of the same sex, heterosexuals of the same sex, homosexuals of the opposite sex, heterosexuals of the opposite sex, a homosexual and a heterosexual, three or more people of any sex and sexual orientation—for any reason or purpose.

But as a libertarian, I never make unqualified, ambiguous statements like “I support same-sex marriage.” That could mean just about anything:

• I support homosexuality.
• I believe in a free society.
• I see nothing unnatural about homosexual relationships.
• I believe in individual liberty.
• I don’t believe in any moral restraints.
• I believe in live and let live.
• I see nothing wrong with homosexuals adopting children.
• I believe in the nonaggression principle
• I think gay sex is a wholesome activity.
• I don’t believe in discrimination.
• I see nothing wrong with Heather having two mommies.
• I believe in personal freedom.
• I support the government redefining things to pacify a vocal minority.
• I believe in equality.
• I support the government intruding into the institution of marriage.
• I don’t support the government intruding into the institution of marriage.

Same-sex couples are free to get “married” and call their relationship a “marriage,” just like they are free to call red green, a circle a square, and chocolate vanilla. They just shouldn’t expect the rest of us, and the government, to follow suit.

Unlike some libertarians, I am concerned that same-sex marriage, because of unlibertarian federal and state discrimination laws, will result in ministers being told that they have to marry same-sex couples, orphanages being told that they have to place children in same-sex households, and photographers being told that they have to photograph same-sex marriages—or suffer penalty of law.

Should the Supreme Court have ruled section 3 of DOMA unconstitutional? I could argue both ways. One thing is for sure: there should be no federal tax, health, retirement, marriage, or nonmarriage benefits for anyone to sue over. And not only should the federal government get out of marriage, it should also get out of everything else. State and local governments should get out of marriage as well.

Marriage predates the nation-state, society at large, countries, states, provinces, counties, cities, towns, local communities, jurisdictions, all government bodies and judicial systems, and the church. It doesn’t need government protection or regulation.

Conservatives, and especially religious conservatives, sometimes argue that same-sex marriage will destroy traditional marriage. I’ve got some old news for them: traditional marriage has already been destroyed, but not by government or gays. It is Christians who have destroyed traditional marriage. Just look at the divorce rate, even among conservative Christians. Since Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage in 2003, how many professing Christians have stood at the altar and said “I do” only to say “I don’t” a few years later?

Legalized Abortion

Social conservatives are particularly concerned about abortion. But so are many libertarians—as I believe they should be. They are just not as vocal as “pro-choice” libertarians.

I have argued here and here that because the non-aggression axiom is central to libertarianism, and because force is justified only in self-defense, and because it is wrong to threaten or initiate violence against a person or his property, and because killing is the ultimate form of aggression that, to be consistent, libertarians should be opposed to abortion. The fact that some of them are not is irrelevant to the question of whether conservatives can be libertarians.

Why should it be considered libertarian to kill a baby in the womb or unlibertarian to oppose such killing? There is nothing libertarian about a woman choosing to kill her unborn child for getting in the way of her lifestyle.

But the Libertarian Party says . . . . Who cares what the Libertarian Party says? A common mistake of conservatives is to identify libertarians and libertarianism with the Libertarian Party. The Libertarian Party does not, and does not profess to, speak for all or even a majority of libertarians. And why should a party named Libertarian that runs a nonlibertarian for president like Bob Barr be trusted to speak for libertarians?

Being pro-life and libertarian is not contradictory. However, being pro-life and conservative may very well be because of the conservative propensity to support acts of violence committed by the U.S. military. Because of their opposition to senseless foreign wars and an interventionist foreign policy, libertarians can actually be more consistently pro-life than conservatives.

Recreational Drug Use

I don’t know of any social conservatives who use illicit psychoactive drugs or recommend that anyone else do so, at least they don’t make it public. Many religious social conservatives not only don’t use illegal drugs, they also abstain from or limit their use of alcohol. That is my choice; that is their choice. But none of this has anything to do with anyone else being freely and lawfully able to use or abuse whatever drugs—legal or otherwise—they choose.

The libertarian approach to drug use is a simple one: there isn’t one. If you don’t choose to cook meth, smoke marijuana, snort cocaine, or shoot up with heroin for moral, ethical, religious, health, safety, or any other reason then fine—Just Say No. But if you do choose to partake, then you are responsible for your actions while you are stoned, and your ambulance, hospital, and doctor bills if you overdose. To be a libertarian, there is no requirement that you use drugs or change your opinion about them or those who use them.

The libertarian approach to the legality of the manufacture of, “trafficking” in, and possession of drugs is also a simple one: yes. Nowhere does the Constitution authorize the federal government to have anything to do with what anyone smokes, snorts, injects, or swallows. Nowhere does the Constitution authorize the federal government to classify, prohibit, regulate, restrict, hamper, or monitor the manufacture, sale, possession, or use of any drug by anyone for any reason.

The libertarian approach to the morality of drug use is another simple one: legal doesn’t necessarily mean moral. One may think that the recreational use of drugs is the most immoral thing anyone could possibly do, but that would still be no reason to look to the government to ban drugs. Furthermore, why should anyone’s opinions about drug use be based on anything the government says? Today the federal government says that this drug is legal and this one is not, but tomorrow it may say just the opposite. And if you want to talk about morality, how can anyone with any sense of morality support the government arresting someone, seizing his property, ruining him financially, destroying his family, and locking him up in a cage for manufacturing or possessing certain quantities of a plant the government doesn’t approve of?

Some libertarians share in the blame for this particular conservative aversion to libertarianism because of how they are so quick to call any Hollywood leftist a libertarian who calls for drug or marijuana legalization even though he may be just a dope-smoking statist.

I have written much on the evils of the drug war. See my book The War on Drugs Is a War on Freedom, and especially this essay titled “Should Christians Support the War on Drugs?”

 The $64,000 Question

Can conservatives be libertarians? In spite of opposition from most conservatives and doubts from some libertarians, certainly they can.

The debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid.” ~ Harry S. Truman

The idea that U.S. military personnel are serving the country just by virtue of being in the military is so ingrained in American thinking that being in the military is simply referred to as being in “the service.”

Callers to some radio shows who identify themselves as being in the military are thanked for their service. Well-wishers in airports thank returning soldiers for their service. Signs outside of churches on the Sunday before one of the three military appreciation days (Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Veterans Day) thank veterans for their service. Signs outside of businesses thank the troops for their service every day of the year. Even postal clerks thank military personnel for their service.

This “military service” mindset leads to some absurd conclusions, like this one I received from a critic: “Enjoy your right to express such intellectually bankrupt ideas. It is through the sacrifices of veterans that you enjoy this right. I just suggest that you exercise it a bit more wisely.” Or this one: “They continue to stand guard for us, so that if someone comes to take away your freedom to write your nice little remarks about them, they stop them dead in their tracks.” Or this bumper sticker: “If You Can Read, Thank a Teacher. If You Can Read in English, Thank a Marine.” Or this one: “If You Can’t Get Behind Our Troops, Feel Free to Stand in Front of Them.”

According to the Department of Defense, there were 155,754 Americans who joined the military during the most recent fiscal year. All four branches of the military exceeded their recruitment goals, as they did the previous fiscal year. Additionally, there were 100,654 Americans who joined the Army or Air National Guard or the Army, Navy, or Marine Corps Reserve.

Are these men (and women) who recently joined the military serving “us” or just getting a paycheck? Oh, they may be serving Uncle Sam; they may be serving an evil empire; they may be serving the president; they may be serving a rogue state; they may be serving themselves—but they certainly aren’t serving “us.”

My problem with many in the military, and many more chickenhawks and armchair warriors out of the military, is not just that military personnel are the president’s personal attack force or that they are a global force for imperialism or that they help maintain an empire or that they fight senseless foreign wars or that they help carry out an evil, interventionist foreign policy or that brothels flourish wherever U.S. military bases are. My problem is the charade, the masquerade, the subterfuge, the deceit, the scam, the ruse that is military “service.”

Military service is a job, nothing more. Forget all the nonsense about duty, honor, country, the flag, the few, the proud, patriotism, 9/11, terrorism, and service. The military is an employment program. If those in and out of the military would just come clean and drop the service pretense, then I wouldn’t pay any more attention to them than I do clerks who work for the Social Security Administration—except, of course, when they unjustly kill for the government.

Why are people looked upon as a special because they “served” in the military? What need in society have they met? What is something productive they have done? Because the military does everything but actually defend the country against real threats, the answer is very little if anything at all. Military personnel should be viewed as just another faceless government bureaucrat or clerk.

So, to those in the military, and to those who moan incessantly about the troops not being appreciated for their service, I would just say this: Stop the deception; end the ruse. The military is an employer. The troops don’t defend our freedoms. When they die overseas they die in vain and for a lie. They don’t protect my right to write anymore than they protect your right to watch television, walk your dog, or play poker.

I am not a fan of Glenn Beck. I negatively reviewed his book Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth and Treasure back in 2011.

I am not an advocate of gun control. I have negatively written about the subject on many occasions.

You can imagine my dilemma, then, when I saw that Beck had just written a book against gun control, Control: Exposing the Truth about Guns. Actually, he had some help, for on the title page it says that the book was “written and edited” by Beck and two individuals, with “writing and research” by five other individuals, and contributions from seven additional individuals. That is a lot of help to write a small-in-size 200-page book. Obviously, my loathing of gun control overcame my dislike of Beck or you would not be reading this review.

My brief analysis of the book is simply this: Glenn Beck almost gets it right. Although he is certainly opposed to gun control, and does a good job of skewering liberals who advocate it, there are a few things in the book that are disappointing.

After a brief “author’s note” by Beck, the book is divided into two parts: “The Truth about Guns” and “Winning Hearts and Minds,” followed by an afterword, “The Way Forward,” and twenty-seven pages of notes.

The book is not divided into chapters. Part one (pp. 1-114) contains a series of thirty-six liberal clichés that Beck supports with documented quotes from gun-grabbers like Dianne Feinstein, Stephen King, Piers Morgan, Michael Bloomberg, Barack Obama, Alan Dershowitz, Rachel Maddow, E. J. Dionne, and Michael Moore. Beck demolishes each cliché with facts, logic, wit, and common sense. Part two (pp. 115-151) mainly consists of Beck’s musings about the connection between violence in video games, TV shows, movies, music videos, rap songs and gun violence. (For the record, he doesn’t think the answer is “to ban video games or television shows or movies.”)

So what could possibly be disappointing about the book?

Beck has an overemphasis and overreliance on the Second Amendment. He writes as if Americans would have no right to keep and bear arms without the Second Amendment. But the Second Amendment confers no positive right. The Bill of Rights, of which the Second Amendment is part of, is an additional limitation on federal power to infringe upon gun rights aside from the fact that no authority is granted to the federal government in the Constitution to infringe upon them in the first place. If the Second Amendment didn’t exist, Americans would still have the natural and moral right to keep and bear arms.

Beck defends the gun control regulations mentioned in the Supreme Court case of District of Columbia v. Heller (2008). It is true that the Court ruled in Heller that “the  Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.” It is also true that the Court reaffirmed this opinion in McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010). But these cases also made it abundantly clear that government can still infringe upon the right to keep and bear arms. Justice Scalia makes it apparent in Heller that the Second Amendment “does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns.” He also goes on to say: “We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those ‘in common use at the time.’ We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’”

Beck apparently supports federal background checks for gun purchases. Although he says, referring to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), that he is “not [a] fan of this system,” he also talks about fixing “the system we have”.

Beck apparently supports the federal government licensing gun dealers and the federal regulation of “gun stores or home businesses that are routinely engaged in firearms commerce.”

Beck apparently supports some other federal gun control measures. He says he agrees with Mayor Bloomberg that drug trafficking should be a federal crime. He talks about holding off on “rushing a bunch of new laws through in the wake of tragedy until we can reasonably assess whether the ones we already have actually work.” He believes that the federal government should outlaw automatic weapons. He says he agrees with Rachel Maddow about people not being able to “possess artillery capable of shooting an aircraft out of the sky.” (Now that the federal government targets people with drones, this might be a reasonable thing to have.)

What Beck, Republicans, and other conservatives need to get through their head is that the federal government has no authority whatsoever under the Constitution to ban or regulate any guns or ammunition, institute gun licensing or gun registration, mandate waiting periods or background checks, regulate gun sales or gun shows, pass any gun-control legislation, or even have a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).

The best thing Glenn Beck ever did is to have my friends Tom Woods and Yuri Maltsev on his television show back in 2010. The best book he ever wrote; that is, the least objectionable to libertarians, is Control: Exposing the Truth about Guns. Here Beck almost gets it right.

The Fourth of July is supposed to be celebrated as American Independence Day – the day when the thirteen original colonies seceded from the British Empire and its oppressive taxation, spying, regulating, and attacks on due process (sound familiar?).

As John Adams wrote to his wife about celebrating the nation’s independence:

The Second Day of July 1776 [the date the resolution of independence was approved by Congress], will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

There is one thing that Adams forgot to mention: adoration of the military. The Fourth of July is now nothing but Military Appreciation Day Number 2.

Military Appreciation Day Number 1 is Memorial Day. This holiday was first observed in honor of Union soldiers who died during the War to Prevent Southern Independence. It was initially called Decoration Day because the tombs of the dead soldiers were decorated. Originally celebrated in select localities, the holiday was first widely observed on May 30, 1868, because of an earlier proclamation by General John Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans. New York, in 1873, was the first state to officially recognize the holiday. After World War I, the holiday was expanded to include U. S. soldiers who died in any war. It is now just a day to honor all things military.

Military Appreciation Day Number 3 is Veterans Day. This holiday began as Armistice Day – a day to commemorate the signing of the armistice on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month that ended fighting on the Western Front in World War I, “the war to end all wars.” A few years after World War II, the holiday was changed to Veterans Day as a tribute to all soldiers who fought for their country. Veterans Day has now become a day to honor, not just those who have served in the military during wartime, but those who have served during peacetime or are serving now. It is now just a day to honor all things military.

Independence Day is now wholly given over to praising soldiers, thanking veterans, reciting ridiculous slogans and poems about the military, and heaping glory, laud, and honor ad nauseam on the troops.

Nothing confirms this more than an e-mail that was forwarded around the country beginning the week before the Fourth of July. It begins:

Happy 4th of July!…. Let’s get this started NOW! So it will be out there on the fourth!

After the Pledge of Allegiance, which no one should waste his time reciting, there are these three statements:

For all of our other military personnel, where ever they may be. Please Support all of the troops defending our Country.

And God Bless our Military who are protecting our Country for our Freedom.Thanks to them, and their sacrifices, we can celebrate the 4th of July.

We must never forget who gets the credit for the freedoms we have, of which we should be eternally grateful.

Wherever they me be? Like I have said on several occasions, most Americans don’t care where the troops go, how long they stay, and what they do when they get there. Defending our country? Are there any U.S. troops that are actually defending the country? It seems to me like they are all overseas somewhere or on ship sailing where it has no business. God bless our military? How blasphemous to ask God to bless the greatest force for evil in the world. Protecting our country for our freedom? U.S. soldiers don’t protect anyone’s freedom – just ask this former solider. The military doesn’t protect our freedom; it stands by while our freedom is eroded and taken away. Thanks to the military we can celebrate the 4th of July? The U.S. military has never had anything to do with celebrating the 4th of July. Even the first Fourth of July was not in any way dependent on the U.S. military in any way. The Fourth of July celebrates the Declaration of Independence, not the day the Revolutionary War ended. Never forget who gets the credit? It is God who gets all the credit for any freedoms we had or still have. It is the God of heaven that we are eternally grateful for, certainly not the U.S. military – employees of the U.S. government. The greatest threat to freedom has always been our own government, not some foreign country or terrorist organization. And as James Madison said: “If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” Since the U.S. military is not strictly used for the defense of U.S. borders, shores, coasts, and skies, it is nothing more than the president’s personal attack force staffed by mercenaries willing to obey his latest command to bomb, invade, occupy, and otherwise bring death and destruction to any country he deems necessary.

The three statements are followed by this poem:

I watched the flag pass by one day. It fluttered in the breeze. A young Marine saluted it, And then he stood at ease.

I looked at him in uniform; so young, so tall, so proud. With hair cut square and eyes alert, He’d stand out in any crowd.

I thought how many men like him had fallen through the years. How many died on foreign soil; how many mothers’ tears?

How many pilots’ planes shot down? How many died at sea? How many foxholes were soldiers’ graves? NO, FREEDOM ISN’T FREE!

I heard the sound of Taps one night, when everything was still. I listened to the bugler play And felt a sudden chill.

I wondered just how many times That Taps had meant ‘Amen.’ When a flag had draped a coffin of a brother or a friend.

I thought of all the children, of the mothers and the wives, of fathers, sons and husbands With interrupted lives.

I thought about a graveyardAt the bottom of the sea. Of unmarked graves in Arlington . NO FREEDOM ISN’T FREE!

Right, freedom isn’t free; but wrong, freedom isn’t provided by the U.S. military. I have asked the same questions as those in the poem: “How many died on foreign soil?” “How many mothers’ tears?” I too have thought about the children, the mothers, the wives, the fathers, the sons, the husbands, and the unmarked graves in Arlington. The conclusion I have reached is this: What a senseless, unnecessary waste of life for any U.S. solider to die on foreign soil or be buried in an unmarked grave.

The poem was followed by these four statements:

Enjoy Your Freedom and God Bless Our Troops.

When you receive this, please stop for a moment and say a prayer for our servicemen.

Of all the gifts you could give a U.S. Soldier, prayer is the very best one.

Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you. Jesus Christ and the American GI. One died for your soul, the other for your freedom. You might want to pass this on … as many seem to forget both of them.

I will enjoy the freedom I have left, until the government takes it away. I will not ask God to bless our troops. I will say a prayer for our servicemen, but it will be a prayer that they come home and stop fighting unjust foreign wars, not a war prayer. Perhaps the most nauseating thing in this e-mail is the last statement that equates soldiers with Christ. As I have said elsewhere: Do soldiers imitate Christ when they bomb and shoot, when they invade and occupy, when they plunder and pillage, or when they maim and kill?

So, until Military Appreciation Day Number 3 comes around, happy Military Appreciation Day Number 2.

Introduction to Laurence M. Vance, War, Christianity, and the State: Essays on the Follies of Christian Militarism (Vance Publications, 2013), 416 pgs., paperback, $19.95.

These essays, although organized under four headings, have one underlying theme: the relation of Christianity to war, the military, and the warfare state. If there is any group of people that should be opposed to war, torture, militarism, and the warfare state with its suppression of civil liberties, imperial presidency, government propaganda, and interventionist foreign policy it is Christians, and especially conservative, evangelical, and fundamentalist Christians who claim to strictly follow the dictates of Scripture and worship the Prince of Peace.

These seventy-six essays also have one thing in common – they were all published on the premier anti-state, anti-war, pro-market website, LewRockwell.com, during the period from October 29, 2003, to March 28, 2013. The vast majority of them first appeared on and were written exclusively for that website. LewRockwell.com is the brainchild of Lew Rockwell, the founder and chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Ala., and a leading opponent of the central state, its wars, and its socialism.

Thirty-five of the essays contained in this work originally appeared in the second edition of the author’s book Christianity and War and Other Essays Against the Warfare State, published in 2008. Four of them appeared there and in that book’s first edition, published in 2005. In addition to essays relating to Christianity and war and Christianity and the military, that book also included essays on war and peace, the military, the war in Iraq, other wars, and the U.S. global empire. Although a third edition was planned, two things served to redirect my intentions.

Because the second edition had already grown in size to seventy-nine essays in 432 pages and I had written so much on these subjects since its publication early in 2008, a third edition would just be too large of a book if I tried to include everything I had written on these subjects since the publication of the second edition. Additionally, since one part of the book and much additional material consisted of essays with a decidedly Christian theme, while the other part of the book and much additional material was more secular in nature, it seemed best to organize the existing and new material along these themes. So, instead of issuing an unwieldy one volume third edition, I opted to collect all of the former material into War, Christianity, and the State: Essays on the Follies of Christian Militarism, and issue the latter material in a companion volume titled War, Empire, and the Military: Essays on the Follies of War and U.S. Foreign Policy.

Each essay is reprinted verbatim, with the exception of the correction of a few minor errors. It should be noted, however, that the original spelling, capitalization, and punctuation are followed in all quotations. Because they were published on the Internet, most of the essays originally contained numerous links to documentation and further information on the Web that the reader could click on if he desired. Because this feature is not possible in a printed format, the reader is encouraged to consult the online versions of each essay at LewRockwell.com where they are archived. Many of the essays also originally included pictures, which, for space considerations, are not included here.

Although many of these essays reference contemporary events, the principles discussed in all of them are timeless: war, militarism, the warfare state, and especially the proper Christian attitude toward these things. The essays in each chapter are listed in their order of publication. Each chapter as well as its individual essays can be read in any order.

In chapter 1, “Christianity and War,” Christian enthusiasm for war and the military is shown to be an affront to the Saviour, contrary to Scripture, and a demonstration of the profound ignorance many Christians have of history. In chapter 2, “Christianity and the Military,” the idea that Christians should have anything to do with the military is asserted to be illogical, immoral, and unscriptural. In chapter 3, “Christianity and the Warfare State,” I argue that Christians who condone the warfare state, its senseless wars, its war on a tactic (terrorism), its nebulous crusades against “evil,” its aggressive militarism, its interventions into the affairs of other countries, and its expanding empire have been duped. In chapter 4, “Christianity and Torture,” I contend that it is reprehensible for Christians to support torture for any reason.

The books listed at the close under “For Further Reading” include not only some of the more important books referenced in the essays, but other recommended works that relate in some way to Christianity and war, the military, and the warfare state. Most of them are available from Amazon.com. The inclusion of any book should not be taken as a blanket endorsement of everything contained in the book or anything else written by the author.

It is my desire in all of these essays to show that war and militarism are incompatible with biblical Christianity.

The legislature of the state of Colorado recently passed, and the governor signed into law, a bill to repeal an antiquated state law that criminalized adultery. The only thing worse than such a dumb law is an even dumber preacher who bemoans its repeal.

Colorado House Bill 13-1166 repeals two sections of the Colorado Revised Statutes. Section 18-6-501, on adultery: “Any sexual intercourse by a married person other than with that person’s spouse is adultery, which is prohibited,” and section 18-7-208, on promoting sexual immorality:

Any person who, for pecuniary gain, furnishes or makes available to another person any facility, knowing that the same is to be used for or in aid of sexual intercourse between persons who are not husband and wife, or for or in aid of deviate sexual intercourse, or who advertises in any manner that he furnishes or is willing to furnish or make available any such facility for such purposes, commits promoting sexual immorality.

Although adultery was illegal, no criminal penalty was specified. However, promoting sexual immorality was a class 2 misdemeanor.

The bill was introduced on January 30 in the Colorado House and on March 13 in the Colorado Senate. It passed the House Judiciary Committee by a vote of 8-3 and the full House by a vote of 37-26. It passed the Senate Judiciary Committee by a vote of 3-2 and the full Senate by a vote of 23-10. It was signed into law by Governor John Hickenlooper on March 22. The bill takes effect on August 7.

Every “no” vote was a Republican vote. And only 4 Republicans out of 40 in the legislature voted in favor of the repeal bill. Republican Sen. Kevin Lundberg opposed the bill, arguing that the law is not archaic and that moral standards continue to be important.

I may not agree with anything else that Denver Democratic Rep. Daniel Kagan, an original supporter of the repeal bill, ever said or ever will say, but this comment he made about the bill is right on: “I see it as saying adultery is a matter between a spouse and his conscience and his God, but not his local sheriff.”

Laws that criminalize adultery or “promoting sexual immorality” are dumb laws. There is no other way to describe them. As legal scholar Jonathan Turley said in 2011 when a similar attempt at repeal failed: “These laws harken back to an earlier period, where a majority of citizens claimed the right to impose their values and morals on their neighbors. The notion of a government policing immorality runs against the grain of our constitutional system. That is more often associated with countries like Iran, where morality police roam the streets.” It is ridiculous to say, as Jessica Haverkate, director of Colorado Family Action, a political arm of Focus on the Family, did in 2011 that repealing the adultery law encourages “the moral decay of our society.” Sorry, Jessica, but the morals of society have already decayed. And no one in Colorado who wanted to commit adultery was deterred by any dumb law against adultery. Laws that legislate morality are not what keep morality from decaying. If this were so, then no adultery would have taken place in Colorado during the last century.

The only thing dumber than a dumb law is a dumb preacher who defends it.

Dr. R. Albert Mohler appears to be an intelligent man. He is the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He holds a Th.M. and a Ph.D. (in systematic and historical theology) from the seminary where he is now the president. He also teaches at the seminary and edits its theological journal. Time calls him the “reigning intellectual of the evangelical movement in the U.S.” The Chicago Tribune terms him “an articulate voice for conservative Christianity at large.” Mohler is the author of several books, writes a popular blog, has a daily podcast, has appeared on national news programs, has been widely published, and has lectured at many prestigious institutions.

Back in March, when the Colorado legislature was considering the repeal of its adultery law, Mohler weighed in favor of keeping the law on the books. Explained Mohler:

Throughout most of human history, morality and law were united and in agreement when it came to the reality of adultery and the larger context of sexual immorality. Laws criminalizing adultery were adopted because the society believed that marriage was central to its own existence and flourishing, and that adultery represented a dagger struck at the heart of the society, as well as the heart of marriage.

Marriage was not considered merely a private arrangement. Every society regulates marriage, and most have adopted clear and punitive sanctions against adultery. But the moral and cultural revolutions of the past several decades have shifted the meaning of marriage from a public institution to a private contract.

Mohler criticizes the aforementioned Colorado legislator Daniel Kagan for saying:

Adultery is a matter between a person and their spouse and their conscience and their minister, but not between a person and the full enforcement of the state of Colorado. Let’s keep the police out of our bedrooms.

Although acknowledging that “the law in Colorado criminalizes adultery, but includes no penalty,” Mohler likes the law because it “has been, at a bare minimum, a reminder of the public nature of marriage and the societal threat of adultery.”

Some observations.

Governments at all levels – federal, state, and local – have too many laws. There are thousands of dumb and illegitimate laws that should be repealed by all levels of government. We should rejoice when any of these laws are repealed.

If a law is legitimate, then its purpose is never to make a statement or serve as a reminder of anything. The purpose of any legitimate law – those that criminalize aggression against one’s person or property and protect people from the violence and fraud of others – is to punish genuine criminal activity. A law without a penalty for violating it is no law at all; it is merely a suggestion.

The fact that throughout human history rulers and government bureaucrats have been nanny statists and puritanical busybodies that wanted to unite law and their concept of morality is a historical fact, but it is certainly not the way things ought to be – not if we are to have a free society.

Laws that criminalize activities that voluntarily take place behind closed doors are unenforceable. An unenforceable law is no law at all. Again, it is merely a suggestion.

Every crime needs a victim, not a potential victim, a possible victim, or a supposed victim, but an actual victim who suffers actual harm or loss. This means that over 90 percent of all federal and state laws are bogus.

Moral crusades of the nanny state fail to distinguish between vices and crimes. As the 19th-century classical-liberal political philosopher Lysander Spooner explained it:

Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property. Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another. Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property.

Unless this clear distinction between vices and crimes be made and recognized by the laws, there can be on earth no such thing as individual right, liberty, or property – no such things as the right of one man to the control of his own person and property, and the corresponding and coequal rights of another man to the control of his own person and property.

To be a crime, adds Spooner, there must exist criminal intent to invade the person or property of another. But vices are not engaged in with criminal intent. A man practices a vice “for his own happiness solely, and not from any malice toward others.”

And finally, there is no support in the New Testament for the idea that Christians should seek legislation that would criminalize immoral behavior. For Baptist Christians like myself and Mohler, the New Testament is our rule for faith and life. Christians are making a grave mistake when they look to the state to legislate morality. Why would they even think of looking to the state to enforce their moral code? The actions of the state are the greatest examples of immoral behavior that one could possibly think of. The state exists only by stealing and killing, and then lying about it. It is not the purpose of Christianity to use force or the threat of force to keep people from sinning. Christians who are quick to criticize Islamic countries for prescribing and proscribing all manner of behavior are very inconsistent when they support the same thing here.

Let me be perfectly clear: I think adultery is always wrong. I believe it is immoral. I consider it to be a grave sin. But it is neither my business nor the business of government to keep people from bad habits, vice, or immoral activities that take place between consenting adults.

If Mohler wants adultery laws to be enforced he should volunteer to be the first to have cameras installed in his home, office, and car (with full NSA surveillance everywhere else), and be taxed to support the army of bureaucrats it will take to monitor the cameras to make sure he doesn’t commit adultery.

Laws against adultery are not what deter people in Colorado or other states from committing adultery. Religion, morality, fear, reputation, and/or family might serve as deterrents, but not dumb laws.

I don’t know if my state of Florida has an antiquated state law against adultery that is not enforced, but whether such a law exists or whether such a law is enforced has no bearing whatsoever on why I choose to be faithful to my wife.

This past Memorial Day brought forth the usual military idolatry. What makes it worse, though, is that this military idolatry is so rampant among Christians and in churches.

And just how can a Christian know if he is guilty of military idolatry? Simple.

Christian, you might be guilty of military idolatry:

• If you send a care package to a U.S. soldier, but not to a missionary.
• If you thank a veteran for his service, but not a pastor, priest, deacon, or minister.
• If you can recite the Pledge of Allegiance, but not the Ten Commandments.
• If you value serving your country more than serving your fellowman.
• If you sing the National Anthem at a sporting event with more enthusiasm than you sing a hymn in church.
• If government welfare spending bothers you, but not government military spending.
• If anti-war rallies make you mad, but cadences recited in basic training don’t make you blush.
  
• If you shed more tears singing patriotic hymns than hymns of worship about the person and work of Christ.
• If you get more excited about U.S. soldiers killing Muslims overseas than U.S. missionaries preaching the Gospel to them.
• If you pray for the troops more than you pray for the furtherance of the Gospel.
• If you can sing patriotic songs without looking at a song book, but have to look at one to sing hymns of worship.
• If you compare the death of a U.S. solider killed in combat to the death of Jesus Christ for the sins of the world.
• If the murder of American unborn children by American doctors upsets you more than the murder of foreign children and adults by American soliders.

And how can a Christian know if his church is guilty of military idolatry? This also is simple.

Christian, your church might be guilty of military idolatry:

• If it asks veterans to wear their military uniforms to church on the Sunday before a national holiday like Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, or Veterans Day.
• If it applauds young men who announce their intentions to join the military with more fervor than it applauds young men who announce their intentions to study for the ministry.
• If it has the members recite the Pledge of Allegiance in church on the Sunday before a national holiday.
  
• If it sends more soldiers to the Middle East than missionaries.
• If it decorates the grounds and buildings with flags on Flag Day, Armed Forces Day, and the Sunday before Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, or Veterans Day.
• If it has special military-appreciation Sundays.
• If it has the members sing patriotic songs on the Sunday before a national holiday.
• If it has the members sing the blasphemous “Battle Hymn of the Republic” at any church service.
• If the sign in front of the church on the Sunday before a national holiday says that as the soldier gave his life for your freedom so Christ gave his life for your soul.
• If it welcomes home U.S. soldiers from war with more enthusiasm than it welcomes home missionaries from foreign fields.
• If it recognizes veterans in church on the Sunday before a national holiday.
• If it offers up more prayers for U.S. troops to be kept out of harm’s way than for foreigners to be kept safe from U.S. bombs and bullets.
• If it justifies Christians serving in the military because the Bible mentions soldiers.

It is no longer safe for non-imperial Christians who think the state should be separated from the church to attend church on the Sunday before Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, or Veterans Day. And woe be unto them if the Fourth of July or Veterans Day falls on a Sunday!

Christians, it is time to slay the golden calf of military idolatry and demilitarize our churches.

There is no question that Syria has been ruled by the authoritarian al-Assad family since 1971, that the country’s human rights record is dismal, and that over 40,000 Syrians have been killed in a civil war that has been ongoing for almost two years.

The question is what the United States should or shouldn’t do about any of these things.

Senator John McCain thinks he knows the answer.

John McCain (born 1936) graduated from the Annapolis Naval Academy in 1958. After flight training, he spent some time on aircraft carriers in the Caribbean and Mediterranean Seas before volunteering for combat duty in Vietnam. In 1967 Lieutenant Commander McCain began bombing runs over North Vietnam. He was shot down on his twenty-third bombing mission and held as a prisoner of war for five years. After his release in 1973, McCain resumed his naval service until his retirement in 1981. While in the Navy, he earned the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Heart, and the Distinguished Flying Cross. After leaving the military, McCain began his career in politics. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982. After two terms there, he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, and has been there ever since.

McCain has been in the news of late because while on a trip to the Middle East to meet with officials from Egypt and Lebanon, speak at the World Economic Forum in Jordan, and visit American troops in Turkey, he also met with leaders of the Syrian opposition in Turkey and inside the Syrian border. McCain, who never met a war or a troop surge he didn’t like, wants to expand the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) that has been used by Presidents Bush and Obama to justify all manner of military interventions. If it were up to McCain, the United States would already be bombing Syria on behalf of theallies of al-Qaeda.

It doesn’t matter what has taken place in Syria; it doesn’t matter what one side has done to the other side. The simple fact is this: McCain is not only taking sides in a civil war, he is trying to get the U.S. government to take sides as well. McCain’s proposals could be dismissed as the ravings of a mad man but for the facts that he is not the only member of Congress who favors regime change in Syria, many interventionists on the left and the right feel the same way, and millions of American are willing to “support the troops” no matter where they go, what they do, or how long they stay.

Contrast McCain’s foreign policy proposals with those of Thomas Jefferson.

In addition to being the president of the United States for two terms (1800 & 1804), Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses (1769), a delegate to the Continental Congress (1775), the governor of Virginia (1779), a minister to France (1785), the first Secretary of State (1789), the vice president of the United States (1796), and the founder of the University of Virginia (1810).

Jefferson not only believed in a foreign policy of nonintervention, he believed in a foreign policy of neutrality:

I have used my best endeavors to keep our country uncommitted in the troubles which afflict Europe, and which assail us on every side.

The satisfaction you express, fellow citizens, that my endeavors have been unremitting to preserve the peace and independence of our country, and that a faithful neutrality has been observed towards all the contending powers, is highly grateful to me.

Since this happy separation, our nation has wisely avoided entangling itself in the system of European interests, has taken no side between its rival powers, attached itself to none of its ever-changing confederacies.

No one nation has a right to sit in judgment over another.

In the course of this conflict, let it be our endeavor, as it is our interest and desire, to cultivate the friendship of the belligerent nations by every act of justice and of incessant kindness; to receive their armed vessels with hospitality from the distresses of the sea, but to administer the means of annoyance to none; to establish in our harbors such a police as may maintain law and order; to restrain our citizens from embarking individually in a war in which their country takes no part.

We ask for peace and justice from all nations; and we will remain uprightly neutral in fact.

No nation has strove more than we have done to merit the peace of all by the most rigorous impartiality to all.

We have produced proofs, from the most enlightened and approved writers on the subject, that a neutral nation must, in all things relating to the war, observe an exact impartiality towards the parties.

I have used my best endeavors to keep our country uncommitted in the troubles which afflict Europe, and which assail us on every side.

Neutrality was the foreign policy of the Founding Fathers. Whatever their shortcomings, foreign policy was not one of them. Neutrality is an “America first” foreign policy. Neutrality is a moral foreign policy. Neutrality preserves American blood and treasure. Neutrality ensures a noninterventionist foreign policy. Neutrality is a sane foreign policy.

Not neutrality unless one side uses some particular weapon; not neutrality until one side commits some particular atrocity – neutrality no matter what.

If Senator McCain feels so strongly in favor of one side in Syria’s civil war, then instead of pulling a public relations stunt he should go to Syria and fight – like Nicole Lynn Mansfield did.

Senator McCain is a third generation Navy man. His son, John McCain IV, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 2009, and is a helicopter pilot. If McCain feels so strongly in favor of one side in Syria’s civil war, then let his son lead the way. American families have lost enough of their sons in the senseless wars Iraq and Afghanistan that McCain has always supported.

The foreign policy of Jefferson or McCain – only one puts America first, only one is moral, only one preserves American blood and treasure, only one ensures a noninterventionist foreign policy, only one is sane, and it is not McCain’s.

Hillsdale College in Michigan hosts Mises Lectures in free-market economics and houses the library of Mises in the Ludwig von Mises Room in its Mossey Library. But being a neocon outfit, it also has on the campus statues of Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill.

This dichotomy is also evident in the college’s monthly newsletter, Imprimus. The newsletter regularly features articles on the Constitution, limited government, and the free market. However, it just as frequently features articles that uphold Ronald Reagan, foreign wars, and an interventionist foreign policy. Imprimus sure has come a long way since Lew Rockwell served as its inaugural editor.

The most recent issue (April 2013) contains an article by R. R. Reno – the editor of First Thingsmagazine – titled “Religion and Public Life in America” – that was adapted from a speech he delivered on February 20, 2013, at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar in Bonita Springs, Florida.

In his speech/article, Reno slanders libertarianism. Here is the complete context:

A recent book by University of Chicago professor of philosophy and law Brian Leiter outlines what I believe will become the theoretical consensus that does away with religious liberty in spirit if not in letter. “There is no principled reason,” he writes, “for legal or constitutional regimes to single out religion for protection.” Leiter describes religious belief as a uniquely bad combination of moral fervor and mental blindness, serving no public good that justifies special protection. More significantly – and this is Leiter’s main thesis – it is patently unfair to afford religion such protection. Why should a Catholic or a Baptist have a special right while Peter Singer, a committed utilitarian, does not? Evoking the principle of fairness, Leiter argues that everybody’s conscience should be accorded the same legal protections. Thus he proposes to replace religious liberty with a plenary “liberty of conscience.”

Leiter’s argument is libertarian. He wants to get the government out of the business of deciding whose conscience is worth protecting. This mentality seems to expand freedom, but that’s an illusion. In practice it will lead to diminished freedom, as is always the case with any thoroughgoing libertarianism.

So, according to Reno, a thoroughgoing libertarianism will diminish freedom. This is the most preposterous falsehood about libertarianism I have ever heard out of the mouth of a conservative. And it is strange that Reno would slander libertarianism based on the argument of Leiter, a leftist who is sympathetic to Marxism.

In a libertarian society; that is, a free society, government (the antithesis of freedom) is strictly limited, a real free market exists, property rights are supreme, and individual liberty abounds.

Libertarianism embraces financial freedom. Instead of the government confiscating a portion of everyone’s income and redistributing it in the form of grants and welfare, paying the bloated salaries of government bureaucrats, maintaining an empire of troops and bases, and spending billions on numerous boondoggles and pork barrel projects, Americans keep the fruits of their labors and save, spend, or support charitable causes as they deem best.

Libertarianism embraces educational freedom. This means no Pell Grants, student loans, vouchers, research grants, teacher-education requirements, teacher-certification standards, Title IX mandates, free and reduced school-lunch programs, Head Start funding, bilingual-education mandates, forced busing to achieve racial desegregation, diversity mandates, standardized-testing requirements, special-education mandates, math and science initiatives, directives such as the No Child Left Behind Act, restrictions on homeschooling, regulation of private schools, and, of course, no federal Department of Education.

Libertarianism embraces medical freedom. This doesn’t means just repealing Obamacare, but also the elimination of Medicare, Medicaid, FDA, the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, SCHIP, government vaccination programs and mandates, government grants for medical research, medical-licensing laws, government funding of clinical trials, government HIV/AIDS-prevention initiatives, government nutrition guidelines, restrictions on organ sales, restrictions on the sale of medical devices, government regulation of medical schools, government medical records mandates, regulation of alternative medicine, federal laboratories, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, special privileges for the AMA and Big Pharma, and all laws and regulations related to drugs, health insurance, hospitals, physicians, and medical care.

Libertarianism embraces economic freedom. Instead of abandoning free-market principles in order to save the free-market system, as George W. Bush once said, libertarianism espouses a real free market based on the principle of laissez faire. This means no price-gouging laws, ticket-scalping laws, minimum-wage laws, anti-trust laws, interest-rate caps, SEC, FCC, FTC, Commerce Department, price-discrimination laws, restrictions on advertising, predatory-pricing laws, anti-dumping laws, special privileges for unions, corporate welfare, or restrictions on any business conducted between willing buyers and sellers.

Libertarianism embraces gun freedom. This means no government background-check system, waiting periods, government required gun-free zones, licensing of gun dealers, gun-owner databases, gun licensing, concealed weapons laws, government limits on gun purchases, government mandated trigger locks, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, National Firearms Act, Gun Control Act, Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, Gun Free School Zones Act, bans on certain types of weapons, magazines, or ammunition, or regulation of gun sales, gun purchases, gun shows, gun storage procedures, ammunition, magazine capacities, gun calibers, or gun barrel lengths.

Libertarianism embraces personal freedom. Want to travel to Cuba or any other country? Go right ahead. Want to grow, sell, or use marijuana? Go right ahead. Want to discriminate based on religion, race, age, height, weight, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, ethnicity, or color? Go right ahead. Want to drive without a seat belt? Go right ahead. Want to ride a bike or motorcycle without a helmet? Go right ahead. Want to fill in a “wetland” on your property? Go right ahead. Want to drink raw milk? Go right ahead. Want to purchase a beer on a Sunday morning? Go right ahead. Want to permit smoking anywhere in your bar or restaurant? Go right ahead. Want to play blackjack with your friends for money in your own home? Go right ahead. Want to purchase Sudafed without restriction? Go right ahead. In the words of the great Leonard Read, anything that’s peaceful. In a free society, consenting adults have the fundamental right to do anything that’s peaceful as long as they don’t aggress against someone else’s person or property while they do it.

In short, libertarianism embraces real freedom, not the false freedom of conservatism. Most conservatives never met a federal program they didn’t like as long as it furthered their agenda. We know what the conservative idea of limited government is: a government limited to a government controlled by conservatives. We experienced it for over four years under George W. Bush and a congressional majority of conservative Republicans. And what did that get us? It got us two senseless foreign wars, the destruction of civil liberties, a doubled national debt, the TSA, and the monstrous Department of Homeland Security.

For the libertarian, freedom is not the absence of morality, the rule of law, or tradition; it is the absence of government paternalism. Libertarianism is the absence of the ability of puritanical busybodies, nanny-statists, and government bureaucrats to make it their business to mind everyone else’s business.

It is a conservatism like that espoused by Reno and the Republicans that has contributed to this country becoming more and more every day a fascist police state. It is a conservatism like that espoused by Reno and the Republicans that diminishes freedom.

Is it okay to kill? I don’t mean a bug in your house, a snake in your garage, or a deer in the woods. Deer tastes good; you may not know if that snake in your garage is poisonous; and bugs are home invaders.

I mean is it okay to kill a man, a human being, a person? Again, I don’t mean someone trying to kill you, rob your business, rape your wife, harm your children, or break into your house. Killing someone might be perfectly justified in those circumstances if it involves defense against aggression.

Specifically, is it okay to kill someone who has not threatened or committed violence or aggression against you, your family, your friends, your neighborhood, anyone you know, or any American you don’t know?

No? Then –

• What if he is not an American?
• What if he lives thousands of miles away from America?
• What if he adheres to a religion that is different from that of most Americans?
• What if he is a darker color than most Americans?
• What if he speaks a language that most Americans don’t understand?
• What if he has habits that seem peculiar to most Americans?
• What if he holds to a political ideology that doesn’t resemble America’s?
• What if he smells different than most Americans?

Does someone having one or more of these characteristics alone mean it is okay to kill him?

Another no? Then –

• What if the U.S. government says he is a terrorist?
• What if the U.S. government says he is an insurgent?
• What if the U.S. government says he is a communist?
• What if the U.S. government says he is an extremist?
• What if the U.S. government says he is a potential threat?
• What if the U.S. government says he hates our freedoms?
• What if the U.S. government says he is the enemy?
• What if the U.S. government says he is a bad guy?

Does the U.S. government merely saying any of these things make it okay to kill him?

No again? Then –

• What if the U.S. government says it is a matter of national security?
• What if the U.S. government says it is in the national interest?
• What if the U.S. government says it is of strategic concern?
• What if the U.S. government says it has secret information that makes it necessary?
• What if the U.S. government says it is part of the president’s grand strategic vision?
• What if the U.S. government says it is essential to maintaining hegemony?
• What if the U.S. government says it is just a part of fighting terrorism?
• What if the U.S. government says it is important to foreign policy objectives?

Does the U.S. government merely saying any of these things make it okay to kill him?

Still no? Then –

• What if the U.S. military gives you a nice uniform?
• What if the U.S. military gives you a gun and ammunition?
• What if the U.S. military pays for your college education?
• What if the U.S. military provides you with free medical and dental care?
• What if the U.S. military offers you citizenship in exchange for service?
• What if the U.S. military gives you an enlistment bonus?
• What if the U.S. military gives you generous combat pay?
• What if the U.S. military assists you with repaying your student loans?
• What if the U.S. military offers you liberal retirement benefits?

Does the U.S. military doing any of these things make it okay to kill him?

Of course not? Then –

• Why are some so quick to make apologies for U.S. military personnel who kill for the state in unjust wars?
• Why are some so quick to excuse U.S. military personnel who kill while not defending the United States?
• Why are some so quick to justify U.S. military personnel who kill people thousands of miles away that are no threat to the United States?
• Why are some so quick to defend U.S. military personnel who kill people that resent and resist being invaded, bombed, occupied, or “liberated”?
• Why are some so quick to blame the government, the politicians, and the defense contractors and exempt the U.S. military personnel who do the actual killing?

For years now I have heard the excuses. But what are these apologists, excusers, justifiers, defenders, and exempters really saying?

• It is okay to kill for the U.S. government in an unjust war if you can’t find a job.
• It is okay to kill for the U.S. government in an unjust war if you can’t make it in college.
• It is okay to kill for the U.S. government in an unjust war if you are economically disadvantaged.
• It is okay to kill for the U.S. government in an unjust war if your father was in the military.
• It is okay to kill for the U.S. government in an unjust war if you are patriotic.
• It is okay to kill for the U.S. government in an unjust war if you are ignorant.
• It is okay to kill for the U.S. government in an unjust war if you are poor.
• It is okay to kill for the U.S. government in an unjust war if you are uneducated.
• It is okay to kill for the U.S. government in an unjust war if you have no resources available.
• It is okay to kill for the U.S. government in an unjust war if you think you are doing the right thing.
• It is okay to kill for the U.S. government in an unjust war if you were raised to never question the military.
• It is okay to kill for the U.S. government in an unjust war if you were never taught otherwise.
• It is okay to kill for the U.S. government in an unjust war if you are just obeying orders.
• It is okay to kill for the U.S. government in an unjust war if you think you are avenging 9/11?
• It is okay to kill for the U.S. government in an unjust war if you think you are defending our freedoms.

I have been given every one of these excuses at least ten times. The first part of the excuse is generally omitted, but why should it be? Is not this exactly what people are saying?

None of this means that the despicable creatures in the U.S. government who send American boys to war, and the equally loathsome creatures outside of the U.S. government who cheer them on, are not to be condemned as well. But those aren’t the people that are applauded in airports, called heroes, and thanked for their service.

But why is it that these excuses only seem to be valid for American soldiers? Why is it that soldiers from other countries aren’t lauded as heroes for killing Americans if they offer up one of the excuses that are commonly used to justify killings carried out by American soldiers?

Some agree with everything I have said thus far, but think that if soldiers are draftees then it changes everything. I know this is the case because they write and tell me. I have written about the culpability of drafted soldiers in my article “Murder Is Still Murder.” But again, why is it that it is only drafted American soldiers who can kill with impunity? I don’t think that apologists for draftees realize what they are saying. To excuse the actions of soldiers because they were drafted is to say that the state can somehow sanctify murder.

Although the U.S. military is looking for a few good men to unjustly kill for the state, it is not okay to kill, even if the military advertises itself as a global force for good.

Republicans are still patting themselves on the back because the so-called Bush tax cuts were made permanent in the American Tax Relief Act of 2012 that was passed by the lame duck 112^thCongress to avert the “fiscal cliff.”

But the American Tax Relief Act only provides tax relief for some Americans.

About half of Americans pay no income tax to begin with. According to the latest data from the IRS, in tax year 2010, the top one percent of taxpayers (in terms of adjusted gross income) paid 37.38 percent of all federal income taxes. The top five percent of taxpayers paid 59.07 percent. The top 10 percent of taxpayers paid 70.62 percent. The top 25 percent of taxpayers paid 87.11 percent of the taxes, and the top 50 percent paid a whopping 97.64 percent.

For Americans who do pay income taxes, the American Tax Relief Act simply keeps things the way they have been since 2010 for the majority of them.

For the rest of Americans who pay the bulk of the income taxes, the American Tax Relief Act punishes success by increasing the highest marginal tax rate and decreasing the availability of tax deductions.

If the Bush tax cuts had already been made permanent then the American Tax Relief Act would have been unnecessary; that is, the Republicans would not have had to compromise with the Democrats.

The question, then, is why were the Bush tax cuts not initially made permanent? For the answer we must first go back to the presidency of Bill Clinton.

As set by the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, the income tax rates under Bill Clinton were 15, 28, 31, 36, and 39.6 percent. Additionally, the child tax credit was $500, the maximum long-term capital gains rate was 20 percent, qualified dividend income was taxed as ordinary income, the section 179 expense deduction for small businesses was limited to a maximum of $25,000, personal exemptions and itemized deductions began to be reduced once income reached $250,000 ($300,000 for married filing jointly), and the estate tax had a maximum rate of 55 percent with a $1 million exemption.

Under George W. Bush, the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA) and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (JGTRRA) added a 10 percent tax bracket and set the tax rates of the others at 15, 25, 28, 33, and 35 percent. The Bush tax cuts also increased the child credit to $1,000, lowered the long-term capital gains and qualified dividend tax rates to 15 percent (0 percent for those in the two lowest tax brackets), increased the Section 179 expense deduction to $250,000, gradually eliminated the personal exemption and itemized deduction reductions, and gradually eliminated the estate tax. That’s right, for those dying in 2010, there was no estate tax.

The problem with the Bush tax cuts (aside from the problem that the tax cuts themselves needed to be cut) is that they were set by the Republican Congress that passed them to expire at the end of 2010. This necessitated the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 (TRUIRJCA) to extend them. The six tax brackets and the rates on dividends and capital gains were extended for two years, as were the $1,000 child credit and the elimination of the personal exemption and itemized deduction reductions. The Section 179 expense deduction was extended and increased. However, the estate tax was revived with a maximum rate of 35 percent and a $5 million exemption.

But because all this was only temporary and had actually expired at the end of 2012, Congress passed the American Tax Relief Act of 2012 on January 1, 2013. The tax brackets of 10, 15, 25, 28, 33, and 35 percent were made permanent (which only means until Congress changes them), but only for those making up to $400,000 a year ($450,000 for married couples). The top marginal tax rate increased to 39.6 percent, the estate tax increased to 40 percent, the alternative minimum tax was permanently indexed to inflation, the top marginal tax rates on long-term capital gains and dividends was raised to 20 percent for those making over $400,000 a year ($450,000 for married couples), the personal exemption phase-out and itemized deduction limitation were reinstated with an income threshold of $250,000 ($300,000 for married couples), the expansion of the earned income credit, the child tax credit, and the American opportunity credit was extended for five years, and some other tax deductions and credits were temporarily extended

Now we can return to our question: Why were the Bush tax cuts not initially made permanent?

The technical answer is the Byrd rule, but the real answer is the Republicans who passed the Bush tax cuts in the first place.

Named after Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) and found in section 313 of the 1974 Congressional Budget Act, as amended, the Byrd rule prohibits “extraneous matter” in any reconciliation legislation considered by the Senate. Under the rule, “extraneous matter” includes anything that would increase the budget deficit in a fiscal year beyond those covered by the reconciliation legislation. Thus, the provision of the EGTRRA of 2001 had to expire at the end of 2010.

The Republicans controlled the Congress and the presidency from the inauguration of George Bush on January 20, 2001, until May 24, 2001, when Republican senator Jim Jeffords switched from Republican to Independent. The Republicans regained control of the Senate in the 2002 election, and controlled both Houses of Congress from January 2003 until January of 2007. This means that for a period of four months and then for a period of four years without interruption the Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress and the White House. The Byrd rule could simply have repealed, just like the Gephardt rule was. It really is that simple.

But that is not the only blunder the Republicans made when Bush was president. On the day of Bush’s first inauguration, the federal debt stood at $5.73 trillion. But then Bush and his Republican-controlled Congress went on a spending spree that rivals FDR and LBJ. By the time of Bush’s second inauguration, the national debt had increased by almost $2 trillion to $7.61 trillion. On the last day of Bush’s second term, the national debt stood at $10.63 trillion. So, during the eight-year reign of George Bush, with a Republican majority in both Houses of Congress for over half of that time, the national debt almost doubled.

The Republicans have only themselves to blame for all the hand wringing that occurred at the end of 2010 and 2012 over the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. They are also entirely to blame for the falsely-named American Tax Relief Act since it passed a Republican-controlled House.

The late Sam Francis was right: the GOP is the Stupid Party.

Perhaps it’s just my imagination, but it seems like the longer the United States military remains mired in Afghanistan, the more recognition is being given to Vietnam veterans.

The U.S. Congress and some states have in the last few years issued resolutions declaring March 30th as “Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day.” March 30, 1973, is the date when all U.S. troops withdrew from Vietnam.

At an event to recognize Vietnam Veterans on March 30 at the Vietnam War Memorial near the Florida State Capitol, Vietnam Veteran Robert Jordan said: “When I see these young guys come home from Iraq and Afghanistan and everybody shaking their hands [and] all that, I shake their hands [and] I give them a lot of respect, but there is a part of me that says where is mine?” “The worst thing that can happen to us is that America forgets what we did,” said another Vietnam Veteran.

The Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall, a 3/5 scale of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington D.C., made an appearance in Melbourne, Florida, for a week late last month. I have never seen it or the Wall in Washington D.C., but I have visited the one half scale version of the Wall in Pensacola, Florida, known as the Wall South. Like the memorial in Washington D.C., these other “Walls” are inscribed with the names of the over 58,000 Americans who died fighting the Vietnam War. (None of the names of the millions of Vietnamese who died as a result of the war will be found on the Wall.)

The purpose of the Vietnam War Memorial is to honor those who fought in the war. One Vietnam veteran I quoted above says he wants respect; the other says that Americans should never forget what Vietnam Veterans did.

I for one will never forget what Vietnam Veterans did – they traveled half way around the world to fight an unjust, immoral, and unnecessary war against people they didn’t know who were no threat to them, their families, or the United States. The Vietnam War was a monstrous evil in every respect. And as Nick Turse documents over and over again in his new book Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam, the whole war was one murderous My Lai incident, with lots of rape, torture, and mutilation thrown in.

So, why should we honor or respect Vietnam Veterans? Because, as Turse documents, they killed, poisoned, raped, beat, tortured, burned, mutilated, abused, drowned, and sexually exploited the Vietnamese? Of, of course not (it is said), only a few bad apples did those things.

How about because they blindly obeyed the state? How about because they were deceived, ignorant, young, and/or foolish? How about because they had no idea what they were getting into? How about because they were pawns of the state? No (it is said), these reasons are insulting to those who “served,” “answered the call,” and “fought for our freedoms.”

How about because of their courage, sacrifice, bravery, guts, and valor? How about because they did it for “duty, honor, country”? Nice try, but asFred Reed recently wrote: “There is no honor in going to someone else’s country and butchering people you don’t know because some political general, which is to say some general, told you to; A hit man for the Mafia is exactly as honorable.”

How about because they thought they were serving their country? How about because they thought they were being patriotic? How about because they were lied to? How about because they were drafted? Okay, these things may be true, but that is not why people say we should honor our Vietnam veterans.

The reason we are supposed to honor Vietnam veterans is because . . . they fought in Vietnam. Just like the reason we are supposed to honor Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans is because they fought in those countries. The mindset of most Americans is that we should honor every U.S. soldier who fought in any war for any reason.

Because of the nature of the Vietnam War, Vietnam veterans as a group should not be honored any more than Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans as a group should be honored. That means they shouldn’t be honored at all.

There are, however, some individual Vietnam Veterans that should be honored – but not because they fought in the Vietnam War. We can honor those who acknowledge that their participation in the war was a terrible mistake. We can honor those who regret the lives they took and the property they destroyed. We can honor those who now realize that the war was a great evil. We can honor those refused to kill once they arrived in Vietnam. We can honor those who have publicly denounced the war. We can honor those who have returned to Vietnam and apologized to the Vietnamese. We can honor these individual Vietnam veterans – but not because of anything they did while fighting in Vietnam.

I don’t know how many of these honorable Vietnam veterans there are, but at least a hundred have written to me expressing regret, anger, sorrow, remorse, and/or shame because they fought in Vietnam. They don’t want to be honored for participating in an unjust and immoral war. They don’t want to be thanked for their service. They don’t want to be respected like Iraq and Afghanistan veterans unfortunately are. They don’t want to remember what they did.

The Vietnam veterans that we shouldn’t honor are the ones who wear their 25^th Infantry Vietnam cap everywhere they go and demand that we respect them, honor them, and not forget their “service.” These we can pity, educate, and help – if they will let us.

The brutal truth about every U.S. soldier who died in Vietnam is that he died for a mistake. The only lasting thing about the death of any American in Vietnam is his name on a wall. I doubt that Nick Turse’s book is sold in the gift shop at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, but is should be.

Should we honor Vietnam Veterans? It all depends.

Last Thursday, April 18, was Tax Freedom Day. According to the Tax Foundation, which has calculated Tax Freedom Day since 1971, this “is the day when the nation as a whole has earned enough money to pay off its total tax bill for the year.” During this year, “Americans will pay $2.76 trillion in federal taxes and $1.45 trillion in state taxes, for a total tax bill of $4.22 trillion, or 29.4 percent of income. April 18 is 29.4 percent into the year.”

Thanks to the tax increases of Obamacare that took effect at the beginning of the year and the “fiscal cliff” tax deal (the American Tax Relief Act of 2012) passed by the lame-duck Congress, Tax Freedom Day came five days later than last year

Sixty-nine (64%) of the 108 days that the typical American must work to pay his tax bill are to cover federal taxes: personal income tax, corporate income tax, excise taxes, Social Security tax, Medicare tax, and other federal taxes. The most egregious, of course, is the personal income tax. Many place the blame on the Sixteenth Amendment that paved the way for the current income tax system. But it is a myth that the government could not tax incomes before the Sixteenth Amendment (see Sheldon Richman’s “Beware Income-Tax Casuistry“). The problem, then, is not the Sixteenth Amendment, but the Constitution itself.

The Constitution is not just an imperfect document; it is a flawed document. Although it is often viewed as written to limit the power of the federal government, just the opposite is true.

In a speech before the Virginia ratifying convention on June 5, 1788, Patrick Henry, asked: “Had the delegates who were sent to Philadelphia a power to propose a Consolidated Government instead of a Confederacy?” The United States were at this time under the Articles of Confederation. According to Article XIII, no alteration could be made to any of the Articles “unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State.” It was resolved by Congress on February 21, 1787, that “it is expedient that on the second Monday in May next a Convention of delegates who shall have been appointed by the several states be held at Philadelphia for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation.” The stated purpose of the Philadelphia Convention was to revise the Articles of Confederation, not to write a new Constitution – a new Constitution that centralized power in, and increased the power of, the national government. The Anti-federalists were certainly correct in their assessment of the proposed Constitution.

With its countenance of slavery, assumption of the right of eminent domain, and ambiguous clauses (general welfare, commerce, necessary and proper), the Constitution from the very beginning had loopholes in it that were dangerous to individual liberty. Even so, I seriously doubt that the Federalists could have envisioned or would have approved of their new government becoming the monstrosity that it now is.

But all this being said, things would certainly be a thousand times better than they are now if the U.S. government simply followed its own Constitution. There would be no programs like Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, Social Security, NSLP, WIC, SSI, SCHIP, Head Start, and TANF. There would be no agencies like the FDA, EPA, TSA, NIH, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, FCC, FHA, Amtrak, Consumer Product Safety Commission, FTC, OSHA, CPB, NEA, NEH, and ATF. There would be no Departments of Education, Agriculture, Labor, Commerce, Homeland Security, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, and Health and Human Services. And, of course, there would be no Appalachian Regional Commission.

It is strange that libertarians, who recognize that the Constitution is a flawed document, are the ones pointing this out, while conservatives, who claim to revere the Constitution, fail to see that most of what they support as legitimate government functions under the Constitution are actually illegitimate.

There are, however, some parts of the Constitution that libertarians – and anyone else who cherishes individual liberty, private property, and a free society – don’t want the federal government to follow at all. Like the first statement in the Constitution under the powers of Congress in Article I, Section 8, which reads:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.

And then there is Article I, Section 9, Clause 4, which states, “No capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.” And of course, the Sixteenth Amendment: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”

The worst part of the Constitution is any part that mentions the taxing power of the federal government. As Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), “The power to tax involves the power to destroy.” Congress can destroy the lives and livelihoods of Americans by taxing them in any way and in any amount – and not be in violation of the Constitution.

The government of Cyprus just taxed bank accounts. There is nothing in the Constitution that would prevent the government of the United States from doing the same thing. We already have federal taxes, not just on income, gifts, and estates, but also on gasoline, airline tickets, alcoholic beverages, tobacco products, and firearms. Many in Congress want to tax commerce conducted on the Internet.

But don’t all taxes have to be to “provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States”? That is certainly what the Constitution says. Yet, they are regularly used to pay for the fighting of offensive wars and the specific welfare of government bureaucrats, privileged contractors, and recipients of government benefits.

The tax code doesn’t need to be reformed, flattened, simplified, or made fairer; it needs to be repealed. In a free society, individuals are able to keep everything they earn and decide for themselves what to do with it instead of the government deciding for them. Just because the Constitution says the Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, doesn’t mean that the Congress has to do so. But how could it be otherwise that the worst part of the Constitution brings out the worst of human nature?

Throughout American history, soldiers have always been held in high esteem. It doesn’t matter where or why a particular war was fought – current and former members of the military have always been put on a pedestal.

We are expected to heap glory, laud, and honor upon them. We are expected to reverence and idolize them. We are expected to post signs expressing our support for them. We are expected to greet them in airports. We are expected to let them serve as role models for our children. We are expected to recognize them at sporting events. We are expected to pray for them during church services. We are expected to let them recruit in schools. We are expected to give them discounts at our businesses. We are expected to give them preference in employment. We are expected to thank them for their service.

To not participate is to be ungrateful for their sacrifice; to object to the attention paid to them is to be unpatriotic. Indeed, to question the military in any way – its size, its budget, its efficiency, its bureaucracy, its contractors, its weaponry, its missions, its effectiveness, its wars, its interventions, and especially its personnel – is to question America itself.

The adulation given to soldiers is especially true if they have been in combat. And this is increasingly the case since the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over ten years ago. Never before in American history has such military idolatry gripped the country. Never before have so many Christians bowed before the golden calf of the U.S. military. It has gotten to the point where any soldier who went to Iraq or Afghanistan is a war hero.

It should come as no surprise, then, that some men have taken advantage of Americans’ infatuation with soldiers and all things military.

According to Mary Schantag, a Marine widow who launched the nonprofit Fake Warriors Project in 1998 with her late husband Chuck, her group, along with partners at similar sites, has revealed more than 4,000 hoaxers who falsely claimed military service or battlefield glory. Mrs. Schantag “uses Internet background searches and files Freedom of Information Requests with government agencies to corroborate a suspicious veteran’s claimed history. She also taps her personal connections with Navy SEALS, Army Special Forces, even military chaplains to double check her detective work.”

Just recently, retired Army Staff Sgt. Fred Campbell, one of 10 veterans who operate a virtual detective agency called Guardian of Valor, and who suffers from paralysis on one side as a result of his military service, helped expose military impersonator “Danny Crane,” a fraud who in public routinely wore two Purple Hearts, a Distinguished Flying Cross and an Air Medal – none of them earned. In reality, Crane “served less than three months in the Army – never in combat – conned the Department of Veterans Affairs out of $7,000 by claiming he was half blind, had once been shot in the back, suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and had 24 metal plates inserted in his face.” Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Kaiser said Crane concocted the persona of “the most decorated man in Florida.” Crane was recently sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison.

While I certainly don’t condone the lies and stupidity of “Danny Crane,” impersonating a war hero is not the greatest of all sins. All the people that were awed by the sight of someone in a military uniform with a bunch of medals are deceiving themselves just as they were deceived. If Americans paid more attention to where the U.S. military goes, how long it stays, what it does when it is there, and how much of their tax money it spends on offense instead of defense, then a fraud like that perpetrated by “Danny Crane” would never have happened.

If soldiers were viewed as makers of widows and orphans, then the last thing the sight of a soldier in uniform would bring to mind would be a hero. If soldiers were viewed as willingly participating in the invasion, occupation, and destruction of countries that were no threat to the United States, then the sight of someone in a military uniform would bring forth feelings of revulsion instead of respect. If soldiers were viewed as ignorant but willing pawns for the state that just couldn’t find other jobs, then they would be pitied instead of praised. If soldiers were viewed with indifference as just men who have jobs where uniforms are required, they would be looked at no differently than cooks, mechanics, or doormen.

Lucas Tomlinson, a producer for Fox News who happens to be a U.S. Naval Academy graduate and a Navy veteran, recently lamented the absence of military flyovers at Major League Baseball’s “Opening Day” festivities due to budget cuts. “Millions of Americans were left without a critical opportunity to not only showcase our military might, but perhaps the first opportunity to see the military in action and think of a future of service in it,” he wrote. “The military needs to do its part to inspire the next generation of heroes,” he added, thus further cementing and perpetuating the military hero myth.

For a real hero, consider the case of skydiving instructor Orvar Arnarson, part of a skydiving group from Iceland that travels to Florida annually. Footage from his helmet camera shows that he was trying to help another man open his parachute just before they both recently plunged to their deaths. “He was a hero,” said Pasco County detective William Lindsey of Arnarson. “He died a hero.” Indeed he did, and he wasn’t even wearing a military uniform.

Recently by Laurence M. Vance: The ‘Conservative’ Republican Budget

Throughout American history, soldiers have always been held in high esteem. It doesn't matter where or why a particular war was fought — current and former members of the military have always been put on a pedestal.

We are expected to heap glory, laud, and honor upon them. We are expected to reverence and idolize them. We are expected to post signs expressing our support for them. We are expected to greet them in airports. We are expected to let them serve as role models for our children. We are expected to recognize them at sporting events. We are expected to pray for them during church services. We are expected to let them recruit in schools. We are expected to give them discounts at our businesses. We are expected to give them preference in employment. We are expected to thank them for their service.

To not participate is to be ungrateful for their sacrifice; to object to the attention paid to them is to be unpatriotic. Indeed, to question the military in any way — its size, its budget, its efficiency, its bureaucracy, its contractors, its weaponry, its missions, its effectiveness, its wars, its interventions, and especially its personnel — is to question America itself.

The adulation given to soldiers is especially true if they have been in combat. And this is increasingly the case since the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over ten years ago. Never before in American history has such military idolatry gripped the country. Never before have so many Christians bowed before the golden calf of the U.S. military. It has gotten to the point where any soldier who went to Iraq or Afghanistan is a war hero.

It should come as no surprise, then, that some men have taken advantage of Americans' infatuation with soldiers and all things military.

According to Mary Schantag, a Marine widow who launched the nonprofit Fake Warriors Project in 1998 with her late husband Chuck, her group, along with partners at similar sites, has revealed more than 4,000 hoaxers who falsely claimed military service or battlefield glory. Mrs. Schantag "uses Internet background searches and files Freedom of Information Requests with government agencies to corroborate a suspicious veteran's claimed history. She also taps her personal connections with Navy SEALS, Army Special Forces, even military chaplains to double check her detective work."

Just recently, retired Army Staff Sgt. Fred Campbell, one of 10 veterans who operate a virtual detective agency called Guardian of Valor, and who suffers from paralysis on one side as a result of his military service, helped expose military impersonator "Danny Crane," a fraud who in public routinely wore two Purple Hearts, a Distinguished Flying Cross and an Air Medal — none of them earned. In reality, Crane "served less than three months in the Army — never in combat — conned the Department of Veterans Affairs out of $7,000 by claiming he was half blind, had once been shot in the back, suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and had 24 metal plates inserted in his face." Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Kaiser said Crane concocted the persona of "the most decorated man in Florida." Crane was recently sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison.

While I certainly don't condone the lies and stupidity of "Danny Crane," impersonating a war hero is not the greatest of all sins. All the people that were awed by the sight of someone in a military uniform with a bunch of medals are deceiving themselves just as they were deceived. If Americans paid more attention to where the U.S. military goes, how long it stays, what it does when it is there, and how much of their tax money it spends on offense instead of defense, then a fraud like that perpetrated by "Danny Crane" would never have happened.

If soldiers were viewed as makers of widows and orphans, then the last thing the sight of a soldier in uniform would bring to mind would be a hero. If soldiers were viewed as willingly participating in the invasion, occupation, and destruction of countries that were no threat to the United States, then the sight of someone in a military uniform would bring forth feelings of revulsion instead of respect. If soldiers were viewed as ignorant but willing pawns for the state that just couldn't find other jobs, then they would be pitied instead of praised. If soldiers were viewed with indifference as just men who have jobs where uniforms are required, they would be looked at no differently than cooks, mechanics, or doormen.

Lucas Tomlinson, a producer for Fox News who happens to be a U.S. Naval Academy graduate and a Navy veteran, recently lamented the absence of military flyovers at Major League Baseball's "Opening Day" festivities due to budget cuts. "Millions of Americans were left without a critical opportunity to not only showcase our military might, but perhaps the first opportunity to see the military in action and think of a future of service in it," he wrote. "The military needs to do its part to inspire the next generation of heroes," he added, thus further cementing and perpetuating the military hero myth.

For a real hero, consider the case of skydiving instructor Orvar Arnarson, part of a skydiving group from Iceland that travels to Florida annually. Footage from his helmet camera shows that he was trying to help another man open his parachute just before they both recently plunged to their deaths. "He was a hero," said Pasco County detective William Lindsey of Arnarson. "He died a hero." Indeed he did, and he wasn't even wearing a military uniform.

Laurence M. Vance [send him mail] writes from central Florida. He is the author of Christianity and War and Other Essays Against the Warfare State, The Revolution that Wasn’t, Rethinking the Good War, and The Quatercentenary of the King James Bible. His latest book is The War on Drugs Is a War on Freedom. Visit his website.

The Best of Laurence M. Vance

Now that the taxpayer’s friend Ron Paul is no longer in Congress, it is hard to have anything but disdain and loathing for the entire pack of crooks and liars known as congressmen.

Nevertheless, there are six Republican members of the House of Representatives that are to be commended, at least this once, for voting against both of the Republican budgets that were recently brought up for a vote.

Rick Crawford (AR), Randy Forbes (VR), Chris Gibson (NY), David McKinley (WV), Walter Jones (NC), and Joe Heck (NV) voted against the Republican budget that passed (budget committee chairman Paul Ryan’s “The Path to Prosperity”), and the one that failed to pass (the Republican Study Committee’s “Back to Basics”).

The Republican Study Committee’s “Back to Basics” budget is the “conservative” Republican budget. Although not as bloated as Ryan’s “The Path to Prosperity” budget, it is worth looking at because it shows just how firmly committed to the welfare/warfare state even the “conservative” Republicans are.

The Republican Study Committee is “the caucus of House conservatives.” There are currently 168 members out of the 232 Republicans in the House. According to the group’s website:

The Republican Study Committee is a group of House Republicans organized for the purpose of advancing a conservative social and economic agenda in the House of Representatives. The Republican Study Committee is dedicated to:

• a limited and Constitutional role for the federal government,
• a strong national defense,
• the protection of individual and property rights,
• and the preservation of traditional family values.

The RSC reviews each piece of legislation under consideration on the House floor using six guiding principles, printed on our “Conservative Check Card” and listed below:

• Less Government – Does the bill tend to reduce government regulations, size of government, or eliminate entitlements or unnecessary programs?
• Lower Taxes – Does the bill promote individual responsibility in spending, or reduce taxes or fees?
• Personal Responsibility – Does the bill encourage responsible behavior by individuals and families and encourage them to provide for their own health, safety, education, moral fortitude, or general welfare?
• Individual Freedom – Does the bill increase opportunities for individuals or families to decide, without hindrance or coercion from government, how to conduct their own lives and make personal choices?
• Stronger Families – Does the bill enhance the traditional American family and its power to rear children without excessive interference from the government?
• Domestic Tranquility, National Defense – Does the bill enhance American security without unduly burdening civil liberty?

This sounds good on the surface. What problem could a libertarian or advocate of a federal government strictly constrained by the Constitution possibly have with reducing regulations, eliminating entitlements and unnecessary programs, reducing taxes and fees, curtailing interference, hindrance, and coercion from government, enhancing security, encouraging personal responsibility, and not burdening civil liberties?

No problem at all. But we do have a major problem with Republicans who tout their conservative credentials, proclaim their allegiance to the Constitution, and spout libertarian rhetoric about limited government, responsibility, and freedom that they don’t actually believe.

For example, let’s take a piece of legislation that would repeal an aspect of the drug war. Introduced in the House on February 5 was the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2013 (H.R.499). How many members of the Republican Study Committee would vote in favor of this bill if they had the chance? You could probably count those in favor on one hand. Yet, such legislation is certainly in line with the Constitution and the RSC’s “six guiding principles.”

Ending the drug war would reduce government regulations and reduce the size of government. It would reduce the taxes needed to fund the Drug Enforcement Administration and much of the federal justice system. It would encourage individuals and families to provide for their own health, safety, and moral fortitude. It would enhance the family by no longer destroying it by putting family members in prison for drug possession or trafficking. It would stop the tremendous violations of civil liberties that occur in the course of fighting the drug war. And it would above everything else increase opportunities for individuals and families to decide, without hindrance or coercion from government, how to conduct their own lives and make personal choices.

Okay, so the members of the Republican Study Committee fail miserably when it comes to doing the right thing about the drug war. But let’s take a look at their “conservative” budget.

The RSC budget is said to be based upon seven “common-sense principles”:

• The budget should strengthen Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security to ensure their long-term sustainability.
• The budget should balance in ten years or less without raising any taxes.
• The budget should reduce spending and make the federal government more effective and efficient.
• The budget should terminate federal programs that are unconstitutional, duplicative, or harmful.
• The budget should implement reforms to Washington’s broken budget process.
• The budget should keep taxes low and include pro-growth tax reform.
• The budget should repeal President Obama’s job-killing healthcare law.

These principles are a mixed bag.

The first principle is something that every liberal Democrat in Congress would wholeheartedly embrace. Not sure why Republicans, and especially those who consider themselves more conservative than the typical House member, want to strengthen income transfer programs.

The second principle is a pathetic joke. The budget should be balanced next year, not in ten years. Not raising taxes is, of course, always a good thing, but calls by Republicans to “close loopholes” and “eliminate deductions” effectively raise taxes while they are saying that they oppose tax increases.

The third and fifth principles are just meaningless political talk about reductions, reforms, and efficiency that one hears during election campaigns.

The fourth, sixth, and seventh principles are certainly laudable, but in the hands of Republicans they become thoroughly corrupted. First, even though at least ninety percent of federal programs are clearly unconstitutional or harmful, Republicans never seem to be able to recognize this. Second, to Republicans, low taxes mean something like the tax rates under the so-called Bush tax cuts. But what is so great about the federal government being able to confiscate up to 35 percent of one’s income? And third, if Republicans just wanted to repeal Obamacare, then that would be well and good. The problem is that they want to replace it with some form of Republicare instead of medical freedom. If Republicans were serious about getting the government out of healthcare, they would be calling for the repeal of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act that they passed in 2003.

There are some good things about the RSC budget. It proposes to eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Labor Relations Board, the Economic Development Administration, AmTech, the Legal Services Corporation, the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) program, the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center, regional commissions, the Essential Air Service program, the Foreign Market Development Program (FMDP), Market Access Program (MAP), Wool and Mohair Subsidies, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Presidential Election Campaign Fund, the Direct Payment Program, and funding for entity that provides abortions.

The RSC budget also proposes to reduce funding for Community Development Block Grants, International Trade Administration, the National Science Foundation, the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority, and the Premium Subsidy in the Crop Insurance Program.

The problem here is that all of these things together constitute a very minute portion of the federal budget. There is no language about the wholesale elimination of the Departments of Education, Energy, and Homeland Security. There are no proposals to abolish the TSA and end foreign aid. And there is certainly nothing to be found about getting rid of the DEA and ending the war on drugs.

The RSC budget is not tepid for political considerations, but for philosophical ones. Even if it had been passed by the Republican-controlled House instead of being rejected by a majority of Republicans 104-132, there was absolutely no chance whatsoever that it would have passed in the Democratic-controlled Senate. So why be timid about slashing government spending?

The three largest spending items in the federal budget are Social Security, defense, and Medicare, in that order. (Real defense spending is actually over $1 trillion according to economist Robert Higgs.) But all it takes is a brief look at the approach of the RSC budget to these three things to see just how committed to the welfare/warfare state even the “conservative” Republicans are.

The bloated defense budget is off limits according to the conservative members of the Republican Study Committee:

Within the discretionary spending total, the RSC budget funds defense at the same level as the House Republican budget, growing from $552 billion in FY 2014 to $678 billion in FY 2023. It is the position of the RSC that to “provide for the common defense,” as called for both in the preamble to the Constitution, as well as Article I, Section 8, is the first duty of government. President Reagan was right that budgetary decisions should be based on a sound defense strategy, not the other way around. It is both unwise and unreasonable to expect that America’s defense should be constrained in order to provide funding for programs that are constitutionally questionable or under-performing.

No matter how much they may criticize other aspects of the federal government, conservatives love the warfare state and its military. (They also love contributions from defense contractors.)

The RSC budget proposes to safeguard Social Security by raising the full-retirement age to 70 to reflect longevity and changing the formula for cost of living adjustments (COLA) by adopting a more accurate measure of inflation. It proposes to save Medicare by slowly increasing the Medicare eligibility age and transitioning to a solvent premium-support system, as proposed by the House Republican Budget – in 2019. This reform, we are told, “would have no impact on individuals 60 and older”; that is, those who vote.

What the “conservative” RSC budget is proposing is that the two main pillars of the welfare state – Social Security and Medicare – be propped up instead of taken down. Even though these two programs are immoral welfare programs that foster dependency, redistribute income, transfer wealth from one generation to another, and shift responsibility from the individual to society, no one was expecting that any Republican budget – conservative or otherwise – would call for their immediate and wholesale elimination. But certainly at the very least there should have been some sort of recognition of the nature of these programs, recommendations for their gradual and humane demise, and substantial reductions in their funding.

This, of course, would be politically unpopular. That is why Republicans who criticize welfare and entitlements can still defend Social Security as insistently and incessantly as Democrats. That is why conservatives who attack government programs and spending can still talk about safeguarding and saving the very programs beloved by liberals.

The “Back to Basics” of the “conservative” Republican budget only means to go back to the level of government that existed during the Bush years. It shows that Republicans are firmly committed to the welfare/warfare state.

The Republican Party is hopeless statist and interventionist at home and abroad. It cannot be reformed. It cannot be made libertarian. It cannot be re-branded. It cannot be trusted to form a coalition with libertarians. It is the enemy of the Constitution, fiscal responsibility, limited government, economic freedom, and individual liberty; that is, everything it claims to stand for. And why would anyone want to bring the party back to its roots? The roots of the Republican Party are intertwined with Abe Lincoln and his senseless war, bad economic policies, attacks on civil liberties, and violations of the Constitution. It is, after all, the Party of Lincoln.

Recently by Laurence M. Vance: Another Bloated Republican Budget

Now that the taxpayer's friend Ron Paul is no longer in Congress, it is hard to have anything but disdain and loathing for the entire pack of crooks and liars known as congressmen.

Nevertheless, there are six Republican members of the House of Representatives that are to be commended, at least this once, for voting against both of the Republican budgets that were recently brought up for a vote.

Rick Crawford (AR), Randy Forbes (VR), Chris Gibson (NY), David McKinley (WV), Walter Jones (NC), and Joe Heck (NV) voted against the Republican budget that passed (budget committee chairman Paul Ryan's "The Path to Prosperity"), and the one that failed to pass (the Republican Study Committee's "Back to Basics").

The Republican Study Committee's "Back to Basics" budget is the "conservative" Republican budget. Although not as bloated as Ryan's "The Path to Prosperity" budget, it is worth looking at because it shows just how firmly committed to the welfare/warfare state even the "conservative" Republicans are.

The Republican Study Committee is "the caucus of House conservatives." There are currently 168 members out of the 232 Republicans in the House. According to the group's website:

The Republican Study Committee is a group of House Republicans organized for the purpose of advancing a conservative social and economic agenda in the House of Representatives. The Republican Study Committee is dedicated to:

• a limited and Constitutional role for the federal government,
• a strong national defense,
• the protection of individual and property rights,
• and the preservation of traditional family values.

The RSC reviews each piece of legislation under consideration on the House floor using six guiding principles, printed on our "Conservative Check Card" and listed below:

• Less Government — Does the bill tend to reduce government regulations, size of government, or eliminate entitlements or unnecessary programs?
• Lower Taxes — Does the bill promote individual responsibility in spending, or reduce taxes or fees?
• Personal Responsibility — Does the bill encourage responsible behavior by individuals and families and encourage them to provide for their own health, safety, education, moral fortitude, or general welfare?
• Individual Freedom — Does the bill increase opportunities for individuals or families to decide, without hindrance or coercion from government, how to conduct their own lives and make personal choices?
• Stronger Families — Does the bill enhance the traditional American family and its power to rear children without excessive interference from the government?
• Domestic Tranquility, National Defense — Does the bill enhance American security without unduly burdening civil liberty?

This sounds good on the surface. What problem could a libertarian or advocate of a federal government strictly constrained by the Constitution possibly have with reducing regulations, eliminating entitlements and unnecessary programs, reducing taxes and fees, curtailing interference, hindrance, and coercion from government, enhancing security, encouraging personal responsibility, and not burdening civil liberties?

No problem at all. But we do have a major problem with Republicans who tout their conservative credentials, proclaim their allegiance to the Constitution, and spout libertarian rhetoric about limited government, responsibility, and freedom that they don't actually believe.

For example, let's take a piece of legislation that would repeal an aspect of the drug war. Introduced in the House on February 5 was the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2013 (H.R.499). How many members of the Republican Study Committee would vote in favor of this bill if they had the chance? You could probably count those in favor on one hand. Yet, such legislation is certainly in line with the Constitution and the RSC's "six guiding principles."

Ending the drug war would reduce government regulations and reduce the size of government. It would reduce the taxes needed to fund the Drug Enforcement Administration and much of the federal justice system. It would encourage individuals and families to provide for their own health, safety, and moral fortitude. It would enhance the family by no longer destroying it by putting family members in prison for drug possession or trafficking. It would stop the tremendous violations of civil liberties that occur in the course of fighting the drug war. And it would above everything else increase opportunities for individuals and families to decide, without hindrance or coercion from government, how to conduct their own lives and make personal choices.

Okay, so the members of the Republican Study Committee fail miserably when it comes to doing the right thing about the drug war. But let's take a look at their "conservative" budget.

The RSC budget is said to be based upon seven "common-sense principles":

• The budget should strengthen Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security to ensure their long-term sustainability.
• The budget should balance in ten years or less without raising any taxes.
• The budget should reduce spending and make the federal government more effective and efficient.
• The budget should terminate federal programs that are unconstitutional, duplicative, or harmful.
• The budget should implement reforms to Washington's broken budget process.
• The budget should keep taxes low and include pro-growth tax reform.
• The budget should repeal President Obama's job-killing healthcare law.

These principles are a mixed bag.

The first principle is something that every liberal Democrat in Congress would wholeheartedly embrace. Not sure why Republicans, and especially those who consider themselves more conservative than the typical House member, want to strengthen income transfer programs.

The second principle is a pathetic joke. The budget should be balanced next year, not in ten years. Not raising taxes is, of course, always a good thing, but calls by Republicans to "close loopholes" and "eliminate deductions" effectively raise taxes while they are saying that they oppose tax increases.

The third and fifth principles are just meaningless political talk about reductions, reforms, and efficiency that one hears during election campaigns.

The fourth, sixth, and seventh principles are certainly laudable, but in the hands of Republicans they become thoroughly corrupted. First, even though at least ninety percent of federal programs are clearly unconstitutional or harmful, Republicans never seem to be able to recognize this. Second, to Republicans, low taxes mean something like the tax rates under the so-called Bush tax cuts. But what is so great about the federal government being able to confiscate up to 35 percent of one's income? And third, if Republicans just wanted to repeal Obamacare, then that would be well and good. The problem is that they want to replace it with some form of Republicare instead of medical freedom. If Republicans were serious about getting the government out of healthcare, they would be calling for the repeal of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act that they passed in 2003.

There are some good things about the RSC budget. It proposes to eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Labor Relations Board, the Economic Development Administration, AmTech, the Legal Services Corporation, the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) program, the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center, regional commissions, the Essential Air Service program, the Foreign Market Development Program (FMDP), Market Access Program (MAP), Wool and Mohair Subsidies, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Presidential Election Campaign Fund, the Direct Payment Program, and funding for entity that provides abortions.

The RSC budget also proposes to reduce funding for Community Development Block Grants, International Trade Administration, the National Science Foundation, the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority, and the Premium Subsidy in the Crop Insurance Program.

The problem here is that all of these things together constitute a very minute portion of the federal budget. There is no language about the wholesale elimination of the Departments of Education, Energy, and Homeland Security. There are no proposals to abolish the TSA and end foreign aid. And there is certainly nothing to be found about getting rid of the DEA and ending the war on drugs.

The RSC budget is not tepid for political considerations, but for philosophical ones. Even if it had been passed by the Republican-controlled House instead of being rejected by a majority of Republicans 104-132, there was absolutely no chance whatsoever that it would have passed in the Democratic-controlled Senate. So why be timid about slashing government spending?

The three largest spending items in the federal budget are Social Security, defense, and Medicare, in that order. (Real defense spending is actually over $1 trillion according to economist Robert Higgs.) But all it takes is a brief look at the approach of the RSC budget to these three things to see just how committed to the welfare/warfare state even the "conservative" Republicans are.

The bloated defense budget is off limits according to the conservative members of the Republican Study Committee:

Within the discretionary spending total, the RSC budget funds defense at the same level as the House Republican budget, growing from $552 billion in FY 2014 to $678 billion in FY 2023. It is the position of the RSC that to "provide for the common defense," as called for both in the preamble to the Constitution, as well as Article I, Section 8, is the first duty of government. President Reagan was right that budgetary decisions should be based on a sound defense strategy, not the other way around. It is both unwise and unreasonable to expect that America's defense should be constrained in order to provide funding for programs that are constitutionally questionable or under-performing.

No matter how much they may criticize other aspects of the federal government, conservatives love the warfare state and its military. (They also love contributions from defense contractors.)

The RSC budget proposes to safeguard Social Security by raising the full-retirement age to 70 to reflect longevity and changing the formula for cost of living adjustments (COLA) by adopting a more accurate measure of inflation. It proposes to save Medicare by slowly increasing the Medicare eligibility age and transitioning to a solvent premium-support system, as proposed by the House Republican Budget — in 2019. This reform, we are told, "would have no impact on individuals 60 and older"; that is, those who vote.

What the "conservative" RSC budget is proposing is that the two main pillars of the welfare state — Social Security and Medicare — be propped up instead of taken down. Even though these two programs are immoral welfare programs that foster dependency, redistribute income, transfer wealth from one generation to another, and shift responsibility from the individual to society, no one was expecting that any Republican budget — conservative or otherwise — would call for their immediate and wholesale elimination. But certainly at the very least there should have been some sort of recognition of the nature of these programs, recommendations for their gradual and humane demise, and substantial reductions in their funding.

This, of course, would be politically unpopular. That is why Republicans who criticize welfare and entitlements can still defend Social Security as insistently and incessantly as Democrats. That is why conservatives who attack government programs and spending can still talk about safeguarding and saving the very programs beloved by liberals.

The "Back to Basics" of the "conservative" Republican budget only means to go back to the level of government that existed during the Bush years. It shows that Republicans are firmly committed to the welfare/warfare state.

The Republican Party is hopeless statist and interventionist at home and abroad. It cannot be reformed. It cannot be made libertarian. It cannot be re-branded. It cannot be trusted to form a coalition with libertarians. It is the enemy of the Constitution, fiscal responsibility, limited government, economic freedom, and individual liberty; that is, everything it claims to stand for. And why would anyone want to bring the party back to its roots? The roots of the Republican Party are intertwined with Abe Lincoln and his senseless war, bad economic policies, attacks on civil liberties, and violations of the Constitution. It is, after all, the Party of Lincoln.

Laurence M. Vance [send him mail] writes from central Florida. He is the author of Christianity and War and Other Essays Against the Warfare State, The Revolution that Wasn’t, Rethinking the Good War, and The Quatercentenary of the King James Bible. His latest book is The War on Drugs Is a War on Freedom. Visit his website.

The Best of Laurence M. Vance

Republicans are upset that although President Obama released his picks for the NCAA men’s basketball final four bracket, he didn’t submit to Congress his budget for the next fiscal year as he was supposed to do by the first Monday in February. I don’t know why Republicans are so upset, since any budget that Obama submitted would be dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

Just don’t think for a minute that Obama’s budget would be rejected because Republicans are fiscal conservatives who want to follow the Constitution, eliminate the deficit, balance the budget, reign in federal spending, and decrease the national debt.

The budget recently passed by the Republicans in the House contains unconstitutional spending, has a built-in deficit, is not balanced, does not reign in federal spending, and increases the national debt.

The House of Representatives actually recently voted on six different budgets.

The budget of the Progressive Caucus was rejected in a 84-327 vote that split Democrats 84-102.

The budget of the Congressional Black Caucus was rejected in a 105-305 vote that split Democrats 105-80.

The budget of the Senate Democrats was rejected in a 154-261 vote, with 35 Democrats joining all the Republicans in voting against it.

The budget of the Republican Study Committee was rejected in a 104-132 vote, with 171 Democrats voting “present.”

The budget of the House Democrats was rejected in a 165-253 vote, with 28 Democrats joining all the Republicans in voting against it.

The budget that did pass, by a vote of 221-207, was House Committee on the Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s “The Path to Prosperity.” Ten heroic Republicans voted against Ryan’s bloated budget: Reps. Justin Amash (MI), Paul Broun (GA), Rick Crawford (AR), Randy Forbes (VR), Chris Gibson (NY), Phil Gingrey (GA), Joe Heck (NV), Walter Jones (NC), Tom Massie (KY) and David McKinley (WV).

This is the third straight year that the GOP-controlled House has passed Ryan’s budget blueprint. It is also the third straight year that not all Republicans were on board the Ryan budget train. Ten Republicans also voted against it last year, while only four Republicans voted against it in 2011.

According to the “Statement of Constitutional and Legal Authority” that begins “The Path to Prosperity”:

This budget – for fiscal year 2014 and beyond – builds on the last two budgets passed by the House of Representatives. It recommits our country to the principles enshrined in the Constitution: liberty, limited government, and equality under the law. And it frees the country from the crushing burden of debt that threatens our future.

And according to Ryan’s introduction:

This budget provides an exit ramp from the current mess – and an entry ramp to a better future. Unlike the President’s last budget, which never balanced, this budget achieves balance within ten years. In the next decade, it spends $4.6 trillion less than will be provided under the current path.

This budget seeks to revive our communities with an emphasis on six areas. It expands opportunity by growing our economy. It strengthens the safety net by retooling federal aid. It secures seniors’ retirement by reforming entitlements. It restores fair play to the marketplace by ending cronyism. It keeps our country safe by rebuilding our military. And it ends Washington’s culture of reckless spending.

Moments before 221 House Republicans voted for this bloated budget, Chairman Ryan said on the House floor:

This budget debate was constructive. It revealed each side’s priorities. We want to balance the budget. They don’t. We want to restrain spending. They want to spend more. We think taxpayers give enough to Washington. They want to raise taxes by $1 trillion – just take more to spend more. We want to strengthen programs like Medicare. They seem complicit in their demise. We see Obamacare as a roadblock to patient-centered reform. They see it as a sacred cow. We think national security is a top priority. They want to hollow out our military. We offer modernization and reform, growth and opportunity. They cling to the status quo.

We are offering a responsible, balanced budget. It recognizes that if we can’t get a handle on our out-of-control debt, we will lose control of our future. We cut wasteful spending and balance the budget.

This plan recognizes that concern for the poor is not measured by how much money we spend in Washington, but instead how many people we help get out of poverty. We reform anti-poverty programs so they work. We help strengthen communities and families.

As briefly as I can, I want to point out seven major problems with this bloated Republican budget.

One, it is too big. Republicans want to spend $3.531 trillion in the next fiscal year. This is obscene. Bush’s fiscal year 2002 budget was “only” $2 trillion.

Two, it is not balanced. Why would Republicans, who love to talk about smaller government and fiscal conservatism, even introduce a budget that wasn’t balanced? And especially after they say in “The Path to Prosperity” that they “owe the American people a balanced budget.” This Republican budget proposes to balance the budget in ten years. This is ludicrous. No future Congress is bound, or likely, to follow the budget proposal of any current Congress. The budget needs to be balanced now, not next year, and certainly not in ten years.

Three, it increases spending every year. Republicans propose to increase spending from $3.531 trillion in fiscal year 2014 to $4.954 trillion in fiscal year 2023. That is, Republicans are promising a $5 trillion budget in just ten years. The very least Republicans could do is keep spending the same as it is now.

Four, it increases the national debt every year. Here are “the appropriate levels of the public debt” as found on page 6 of H.CON.RES.25, a concurrent resolution “establishing the budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2014 and setting forth appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2015 through 2023″:

Fiscal year 2014: $17,776,278,000,000

Fiscal year 2015: $18,086,450,000,000

Fiscal year 2016: $18,343,824,000,000

Fiscal year 2017: $18,635,129,000,000

Fiscal year 2018: $18,938,669,000,000

Fiscal year 2019: $19,267,212,000,000

Fiscal year 2020: $19,608,732,000,000

Fiscal year 2021: $19,900,718,000,000

Fiscal year 2022: $20,162,755,000,000

Fiscal year 2023: $20,319,503,000,000

Six, it is filled with unconstitutional spending. According to the report that accompanies the budget resolution, this budget would fund foreign aid, farm subsidies, job training, food stamps, research, space exploration, flood insurance, education, substance-abuse prevention and treatment, Medicare, Medicaid, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, unemployment compensation, low-income housing assistance, school-lunch subsidies, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (“the Government’s principal welfare program”), Supplemental Security Income, the refundable portion of the Earned Income Credit, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, and a myriad of other unconstitutional spending programs. No long-standing, major unconstitutional federal programs are abolished; they are just reformed or strengthened.

And seven, almost everything House Republicans say about their budget is a lie. This Republican budget won’t recommit the country to the principles of the Constitution; it won’t free the country from the crushing burden of debt; it won’t provide an exit ramp from the current mess; it won’t provide an entry ramp to a better future; it won’t spend less, only less than the current path; it won’t revive our communities; it won’t grow the economy; it won’t expand opportunity; it won’t end cronyism; it won’t end Washington’s culture of reckless spending; it won’t balance the budget; it won’t cut wasteful spending; it won’t get a handle on our out-of-control debt; it won’t restrain spending; it won’t make anti-poverty programs work; it won’t help strengthen communities and families. And the things that Republicans say that are not a lie are not necessarily good. This Republican budget will strengthen the safety net, secure seniors’ retirement, rebuild the military, and strengthen Medicare. But since when, from the standpoint of the Constitution and limited government, are these good things?

The Republicans are right: “Ultimately, the budget is more than a list of numbers. It’s an expression of our governing philosophy.” And just what is their governing philosophy? The Path to Prosperity budget plan, just like last year’s version, is a path toward, and a blueprint for, the welfare/warfare state.

Another bloated Republican budget – is there any other kind?

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Republicans are upset that although President Obama released his picks for the NCAA men's basketball final four bracket, he didn't submit to Congress his budget for the next fiscal year as he was supposed to do by the first Monday in February. I don't know why Republicans are so upset, since any budget that Obama submitted would be dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

Just don't think for a minute that Obama's budget would be rejected because Republicans are fiscal conservatives who want to follow the Constitution, eliminate the deficit, balance the budget, rein in federal spending, and decrease the national debt.

The budget recently passed by the Republicans in the House contains unconstitutional spending, has a built-in deficit, is not balanced, does not rein in federal spending, and increases the national debt.

The House of Representatives actually recently voted on six different budgets.

The budget of the Progressive Caucus was rejected in a 84-327 vote that split Democrats 84-102.

The budget of the Congressional Black Caucus was rejected in a 105-305 vote that split Democrats 105-80.

The budget of the Senate Democrats was rejected in a 154-261 vote, with 35 Democrats joining all the Republicans in voting against it.

The budget of the Republican Study Committee was rejected in a 104-132 vote, with 171 Democrats voting "present."

The budget of the House Democrats was rejected in a 165-253 vote, with 28 Democrats joining all the Republicans in voting against it.

The budget that did pass, by a vote of 221-207, was House Committee on the Budget Chairman Paul Ryan's "The Path to Prosperity." Ten heroic Republicans voted against Ryan's bloated budget: Reps. Justin Amash (MI), Paul Broun (GA), Rick Crawford (AR), Randy Forbes (VR), Chris Gibson (NY), Phil Gingrey (GA), Joe Heck (NV), Walter Jones (NC), Tom Massie (KY) and David McKinley (WV).

This is the third straight year that the GOP-controlled House has passed Ryan's budget blueprint. It is also the third straight year that not all Republicans were on board the Ryan budget train. Ten Republicans also voted against it last year, while only four Republicans voted against it in 2011.

According to the "Statement of Constitutional and Legal Authority" that begins "The Path to Prosperity":

This budget — for fiscal year 2014 and beyond — builds on the last two budgets passed by the House of Representatives. It recommits our country to the principles enshrined in the Constitution: liberty, limited government, and equality under the law. And it frees the country from the crushing burden of debt that threatens our future.

And according to Ryan's introduction:

This budget provides an exit ramp from the current mess — and an entry ramp to a better future. Unlike the President's last budget, which never balanced, this budget achieves balance within ten years. In the next decade, it spends $4.6 trillion less than will be provided under the current path.

This budget seeks to revive our communities with an emphasis on six areas. It expands opportunity by growing our economy. It strengthens the safety net by retooling federal aid. It secures seniors' retirement by reforming entitlements. It restores fair play to the marketplace by ending cronyism. It keeps our country safe by rebuilding our military. And it ends Washington's culture of reckless spending.

Moments before 221 House Republicans voted for this bloated budget, Chairman Ryan said on the House floor:

This budget debate was constructive. It revealed each side's priorities. We want to balance the budget. They don't. We want to restrain spending. They want to spend more. We think taxpayers give enough to Washington. They want to raise taxes by $1 trillion — just take more to spend more. We want to strengthen programs like Medicare. They seem complicit in their demise. We see Obamacare as a roadblock to patient-centered reform. They see it as a sacred cow. We think national security is a top priority. They want to hollow out our military. We offer modernization and reform, growth and opportunity. They cling to the status quo.

We are offering a responsible, balanced budget. It recognizes that if we can't get a handle on our out-of-control debt, we will lose control of our future. We cut wasteful spending and balance the budget.

This plan recognizes that concern for the poor is not measured by how much money we spend in Washington, but instead how many people we help get out of poverty. We reform anti-poverty programs so they work. We help strengthen communities and families.

As briefly as I can, I want to point out seven major problems with this bloated Republican budget.

One, it is too big. Republicans want to spend $3.531 trillion in the next fiscal year. This is obscene. Bush's fiscal year 2002 budget was "only" $2 trillion.

Two, it is not balanced. Why would Republicans, who love to talk about smaller government and fiscal conservatism, even introduce a budget that wasn't balanced? And especially after they say in "The Path to Prosperity" that they "owe the American people a balanced budget." This Republican budget proposes to balance the budget in ten years. This is ludicrous. No future Congress is bound, or likely, to follow the budget proposal of any current Congress. The budget needs to be balanced now, not next year, and certainly not in ten years.

Three, it increases spending every year. Republicans propose to increase spending from $3.531 trillion in fiscal year 2014 to $4.954 trillion in fiscal year 2023. That is, Republicans are promising a $5 trillion budget in just ten years. The very least Republicans could do is keep spending the same as it is now.

Four, it increases the national debt every year. Here are "the appropriate levels of the public debt" as found on page 6 of H.CON.RES.25, a concurrent resolution "establishing the budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2014 and setting forth appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2015 through 2023":

Fiscal year 2014: $17,776,278,000,000

Fiscal year 2015: $18,086,450,000,000

Fiscal year 2016: $18,343,824,000,000

Fiscal year 2017: $18,635,129,000,000

Fiscal year 2018: $18,938,669,000,000

Fiscal year 2019: $19,267,212,000,000

Fiscal year 2020: $19,608,732,000,000

Fiscal year 2021: $19,900,718,000,000

Fiscal year 2022: $20,162,755,000,000

Fiscal year 2023: $20,319,503,000,000

Six, it is filled with unconstitutional spending. According to the report that accompanies the budget resolution, this budget would fund foreign aid, farm subsidies, job training, food stamps, research, space exploration, flood insurance, education, substance-abuse prevention and treatment, Medicare, Medicaid, the State Children's Health Insurance Program, unemployment compensation, low-income housing assistance, school-lunch subsidies, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families ("the Government's principal welfare program"), Supplemental Security Income, the refundable portion of the Earned Income Credit, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, and a myriad of other unconstitutional spending programs. No long-standing, major unconstitutional federal programs are abolished; they are just reformed or strengthened.

And seven, almost everything House Republicans say about their budget is a lie. This Republican budget won't recommit the country to the principles of the Constitution; it won't free the country from the crushing burden of debt; it won't provide an exit ramp from the current mess; it won't provide an entry ramp to a better future; it won't spend less, only less than the current path; it won't revive our communities; it won't grow the economy; it won't expand opportunity; it won't end cronyism; it won't end Washington's culture of reckless spending; it won't balance the budget; it won't cut wasteful spending; it won't get a handle on our out-of-control debt; it won't restrain spending; it won't make anti-poverty programs work; it won't help strengthen communities and families. And the things that Republicans say that are not a lie are not necessarily good. This Republican budget will strengthen the safety net, secure seniors' retirement, rebuild the military, and strengthen Medicare. But since when, from the standpoint of the Constitution and limited government, are these good things?

The Republicans are right: "Ultimately, the budget is more than a list of numbers. It's an expression of our governing philosophy." And just what is their governing philosophy? The Path to Prosperity budget plan, just like last year's version, is a path toward, and a blueprint for, the welfare/warfare state.

Another bloated Republican budget — is there any other kind?

Laurence M. Vance [send him mail] writes from central Florida. He is the author of Christianity and War and Other Essays Against the Warfare State, The Revolution that Wasn’t, Rethinking the Good War, and The Quatercentenary of the King James Bible. His latest book is The War on Drugs Is a War on Freedom. Visit his website.

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