All posts by Samuel Adams

I've lived in Canon City my whole life. It makes me sick to think of where this country is headed. The solutions are in God's Word.
Abolish The Police, Christianity

Thank God for Police Body Cameras and the Cameras In Our Pockets

A Christian, cop friend of mine posted this:

You may remember Rodney King. He was badly beaten by a few cops, whose trial was moved from LA and a jury of Rodney’s peers to Simi Valley, which is about 90% white. The jury found the cops not guilty, and that sparked the LA riots in 1992. Rodney’s beating was video taped from afar by a guy with a big VHS video camera. If it weren’t for that guy’s video, no one would have ever known about those evil cops.

Today, a lot of cops wear a body camera, and people have video cameras in their pockets, and carry them everywhere. It has led to hundreds of cops being exposed as evil, crooked, power-tripping, dirt bags. However, just as with Rodney King, prosecutors (who are on the same side as the cops) manage to get cops off for the crimes they commit, even when there is video.

For example, several cops have been caught planting drugs by their body cam.  Cop apologists say that is the 1% of bad cops they’re talking about. I have a couple of questions about that. Did the police departments in these cases volunteer this video to the defense or the media? Wouldn’t the real measure of the effectiveness of body cams be the rate at which the “good” cops voluntarily use the footage to pursue justice against cops who do bad things? How often, when a cop sees another cop doing something wrong has the good cop requested the footage or taken his own footage of the incident and sought justice for the wrongdoing, or even made an arrest? Are the relatively small proportion of body cams catching bad cops due to defendants, prosecutors or media requesting footage? How hard is it for people to get the footage of any given incident, and are we sure the footage isn’t doctored?

I have no doubt that cops love body cams when they’re falsely accused, and they spread the footage far and wide. I also have no doubt that people have often falsely accused them, and “good” cops ought to love body cams.

All of that is interesting, but the big question this meme raises is: By what standard do we measure “good”? Greg Bahnsen wrote books on that topic, one of which is titled “By What Standard?” I vehemently reject that the standard for what makes a good cop can be found in man’s law. A cop that goes through his career having never abused any citizens, but strictly enforcing unjust laws is not a good cop. The standard for goodness must come from Scripture. God owns the terms good, bad, evil, wicked, righteous and just. Those are terms only he can define.

So what is the biblical definition of a good cop? First of all, socialist-funded security services wouldn’t be permitted in Scripture. Second, individuals having executive power to arrest people on the spot is also biblically prohibited. Third, forgetting the first two issues, the definition for good government would come from Romans 13 (among other places). That chapter teaches that rulers are supposed to be God’s servants to carry out His wrath against evildoers. Every level of U.S. government is prohibited from seeking to be a servant of the God of the Bible. It is unconstitutional.

Did you catch that? It is unconstitutional for our government to be good by God’s definition. There are no good cops, judges, street sweepers, TSA agents, bureaucrats, etc., unless they are somehow sabotaging the system, disobeying orders or refusing to do the sinful things they may be asked to do.

So, body cams have shown that there are plenty of bad cops. And for a Christian to post this meme only goes to show the sad state of the American church.

Body cams are great, because even though they may not be effective all the time, and may be tampered with, they have exposed many dirty cops. I would also think that police would be less likely to abuse people with their body cams on. Ultimately, the only thing that will improve police behavior is if they’re prosecuted and treated under the same law as everyone else. Having cops commit a crime on body cam and then having the prosecutor not prosecute or throw the case is useless.

 

 

 

Border Policy

Comment on the Video From Yesterday

In reference to yesterday’s video, Bojidar Marinov had this to say about whether it’s polite for immigrants to this country to only speak English in public.

Until 1920, the US had large areas where English was a minority language. In 1875, more than half the newspapers in St. Louis MO were printed in German or other languages. Central and North Texas had more German speakers than English speakers until the 1930s. I have friends of Norwegian and Swedish descent who grew up listening to sermons in Scandinavian languages in their churches in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and that was back in the 1960s. The majority of the Dutch Reformed theologians in America in the 20th century grew up with Dutch being the main language spoken in their communities.

Guess who started the campaign to unify all under the same language.

The socialists. The campaign started in the late 1800s, and behind it were Fabian socialists who were concerned that a diverse population could be much harder to control. One of the concepts behind the government schools was to make all the kids uniform under the same language, Once the kids were separated from the language of the parents, they would be an easy prey for socialists to indoctrinate.

Well, they succeeded.

Christianity

The Ten Fundamentals of Modern Statism by RJ Rushdoony

1. The first duty of every state is to protect the state, not the people.

2. Other states are occasional enemies; the people are the continual enemies.

3. The purpose of taxation is confiscation, control, the redistribution of wealth, control, the support of the civil government, and control.

4. All steps to increase state power must be done in the name of The People, but the people are to be used and stripped of freedom in the process.

5. Freedom is dangerous; controls are good.

6. Freedom must be redefined; it is a right to be morally loose and irresponsible, but Christian morality is social slavery.

7. Children are the property of the state.

8. The two great sources of evil are the church and the family.

9. The only world is the world; there is no God, no heaven, nor hell.

10. Anything the state operates or does is good, in any and all spheres: education, war, peace, spending, and so on. What is “public” or statist is good; what is “private” is bad.

Christianity, Open Borders

How Do We Know Whether We Should Have Open Borders?

There are a couple of issues where conservatives have completely gone off their rockers, where they endorse liberalism, and claim it is conservatism–borders and police.

Conservatives are supposed to be for small government, but they leave that ideal behind on this topic. In this video, we see a clear demonstration that Reagan is for much more freedom on this issue than Bill Clinton/Obama, etc. Yet conservatives ignore Reagan and adopt liberalism whole hog.

I’d also point out that conservatives are supposed to be strict constructionists on the Constitution. Yet, the Constitution gives no power to congress to regulate immigration, but they’re willing to throw out the Constitution on this topic.

Is this just an intellectual exercise, or is it important for Christians to be able to figure this out? It seems important to me to figure this out. The Bible speaks on this topic. Why would we be free to ignore it or contradict it? We are to be kind to immigrants and stand up for the weak. If we are in favor of the government harassing people, we are hardly applying biblical principles.

Christianity, Great Quote

Tips For Young Women

I have two little girls, a 3-year old and one whose due date is tomorrow. I definitely feel unqualified to advise them as they grow up. I guess I haven’t prepared for that, but I have a few years, and things like this will catch my eye.

This is advice from Bojidar Marinov that sounds pretty good.

That’s why I tell single girls (including my own): As a general rule, stay away from these three groups of men: (1) statists and government employees (socialists, Communists, cops, bureaucrats, etc.), (2) institutional church leaders (pastors, youth pastors, worship leaders, teachers in seminaries, etc.), and (3) patriarchalists. There may be individual exceptions among them, but in general, all these people have the mentality of exploiting you as a weaker vessel, always under the disguise of “exercising authority” over you. And you will eventually end up exploited, no matter how glorious the beginning may be.

Find a man who is focused not on finding a wife but on serving others – whether business, work, art, finances, charity, etc. A man who has a field of work that doesn’t depend on you and doesn’t include ruling over you as a source for his sense of “manhood.”. That’s the man you want. If he is interested in you, great. If not, use your female charm to make him interested in you. And then, when you marry him, keep him focused on his work, so that he give you the freedom to be a true wife, not a concubine of the sort the patriarchalists want you to be.

Christianity, Theonomy

Were the Puritans Theonomists?

Here’s Joel McDurmon answering that question, and assigning some reading.

Well, that first of all depends on how one defines “Puritan.” It also depends on exactly what you mean by “that view” of Theonomy, because both Rush and Bahnsen 1) did not fully agree with each other, and 2) left many exegetical questions vague or unanswered, which means other people (“Puritans” included) could disagree with either or both at various points as well.

Nevertheless, there is substantial agreement, in some cases almost total with Bahnsen, among some of the Westminster Divines, some of their precursors, and some of the New England Puritans.

For their primary sources, I would start with these few places:

Johannes Piscator, Disputations on the Judicial Laws of Moses.
https://americanvision.org/12386/new-piscator-on-the-judicial-laws-of-moses-1607-or-theonomy-before-theonomy-was-cool/

Disputations on the Judicial Laws of Moses
The appendix in this book lists several theologians who followed this view, which is almost identical to modern biblical Theonomy.

For New England examples, see this collection of three sermons which relate that very view, clearly influenced by Piscator, et al after him. Appleton’s sermon especially is dead-on.
https://americanvision.org/12034/gods-law-in-the-american-founding-another-brand-new-book-from-american-vision/

https://store.americanvision.org/products/gods-law-and-government-in-america

Finally, there is a terrific historical essay in a journal called The Confessional Presbyterian. The essay is on “The Westminster Assembly and the Judicial Law: Part One, Chronology.” It outlines many published views of the Divines. Some are dead-on for Bahnsen’s view. Other’s are Constantinian. Some are in between. Still others are completely dismissive of the judicial laws. There was a full spectrum of views at the assembly. I recommend this essay, but the companion essay right after it, “Part Two: Analysis” is awful.

These all should give you a great start on this question and some primary sources. There are more listed in that last essay. It may be good at some point to pull them up a reprint them, but Piscator and the New England sermons are all I have in full right now.

Abolish The Police, Abortion, Another Lying Cop

Another Lying Cop

Cops routinely lie about whether a citizen is required to show identification. You can catch the actual lying at 1:43.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9z3oV-aqpdM

There are awesome cop blockers and free speech advocates among Christians who are preaching the gospel/working to abolish abortion. They just don’t call themselves cop blockers or promote their videos that way. The cop blockers and citizen journalists go around and sometimes seem to be trying to provoke cops (which is fine and I enjoy watching that important work) while Christians truly have a purpose for what they’re doing.

Abolish The Police, Abortion, Another Lying Cop

Abusive Cop

Personally, I’d tell this guy that I respect neither him nor the law. Any cop that doesn’t lift a finger to protect unborn babies deserves no respect. Any country with laws that allow the murder of 60 million babies deserves no respect.

Furthermore, any cop that would pull someone over for disrespect, aka exercising the 1st amendment constitutional right, is not worthy of respect. His job is to protect constitutional rights, not use government resources to discourage their exercise.