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.
Practical Ideas, Resistance to Tyranny is Obedience to God

A Possible Conversation

In yesterday’s post, I showed that the only valid government is a government that acknowledges Jesus Christ as Lord and submits to His law. Here’s a possible conversation with a bureacrat along those lines.

Me: Why do your laws apply to me?

Bureaucrat: Well, maybe I can find the statute here, give me a second.

Me: That’s circular. The law can’t apply just because the law says it applies. That isn’t a valid answer.

Bureaucrat: I’m sorry that’s just the way it is.

Me: I agree that’s the way it is, though I certainly don’t like it. You are willing to kill me or lock me up to get your way. However, might does not make right.

Bureaucrat: You get a lot of benefits from government.

Me: Yes, I get some I like and a lot I don’t like, but I don’t agree that it’s acceptable for you to provide those benefits by holding a gun to my head and forcing me to pay for them. That is stealing. It’s not acceptable for government to protect my rights by taking away my rights.

Bureaucrat: Then maybe you should consider moving to Somalia.

Me: I assure you there are government thiefs there as well. My continued residency here doesn’t make your theft any less sinful. Your theft is between you and the Lord, and you won’t stand before Him and be judged by Colorado law. You’ll be judged by His law.

Bureaucrat: Well, uh…

Me: I will let you off the hook, and tell you the only possible reason why government laws might be valid and apply. The only possible reason is that the Bible defines the proper role for government and says that people ought to obey proper government.

Bureaucrat: Great, there you go. Now your amount due is nine hundred and…

Me: Whoa! I said, the Bible says that people ought to obey PROPER government–biblical government. Do you think Colorado is a biblical government?

Bureaucrat: Yes, we do a lot of good things. We give poor people money, we educate children, we protect wildlife, and build roads just to name a few.

Me: But are those things biblical? Is that the role God has given government? I assure you that none of those things are on the list. It is unconstitutional for the government to even consider doing what the Bible says. They have long since rejected Jesus as Lord.

Bureaucrat: True. This isn’t a Christian country.

Me: Exactly. Exactly! Maybe it was at one point, but it certainly isn’t anymore. Therefore, it is the government that has rejected the only valid reason why the laws it makes might apply to me. All that’s left is rule by force. And since you’re holding that gun to my head, I’ll pay the amount due. But do you see that just as in every other area of life, government must choose between Jesus Christ and absurdity. Jesus said in Matthew 12:30, “If you’re not with me, you’re against me.” You’re working for those who have not only not chosen to be with Christ, but have openly rejected Christ.

Bureaucrat: That’s it sir. I’m calling the sheriff.

Me: Yes, the guys with the guns who are willing to kill me. You’re only doubling down on your rejection of Christ, and your worship of the beast. I pray that you’ll think about what we’ve talked about.

Hopefully, that is a conversation I will get to have at some point, and reinforce to people that we must choose Christ or absurdity.

Uncategorized

What Is a Valid Government?

For argument sake, let’s propose the following. I have passed a new law saying:

  1. I am the government.
  2. I can drive whatever speed I like.

If a cop pulls me over for speeding, I will pull out my law book and quote to him, “I can drive whatever speed I like.” Of course, he’d have a good chuckle and write me a ticket. He has a gun, and just as importantly, the willingness to kill me.

The knee jerk reaction of 99.9% of people reading that would say my government is not valid. But why? Why is the state of Colorado law valid, and my government and law invalid?

Isn’t making up a new government exactly what the state of Colorado (or whatever government at whatever level) has done? A group of guys got together and said, “We are the new government.”

Then, they say something like, “Let’s write a consitution! The constitution will define our territory and we’ll make up out of thin air a process for new laws to be passed. Somewhere in the law or the constitution, we’re going to have to say that we have the right to apply our laws to the people within our boundaries. If someone comes along and asks whether we have the right to do this, we’re going to be able to quote to them from our laws saying that we do have the right.”

So, they’d say the law applies, because the law says it applies. This is circular reasoning, and isn’t a valid answer. If I said Islam is true because the Quran says so, you’d say that’s circular, and you’d be right to reject my answer.

I’ll put forth a few devil’s advocate answers to the question about why the government of Colorado laws might be valid.

The laws of the government of Colorado are valid because:

  1. They control the territory defined as Colorado.
  2. The government has been in existence in its current form since 1876.
  3. Anyone who enters the territory of Colorado agrees to abide by the law or face the consequences.
  4. Government agents have guns and are more than willing to use them. They rule by force.
  5. The Bible says we should obey the civil magistrates (Romans 13:1-7).

Numbers 1 and 4 are really the same. Forcing or threatening people doesn’t really make laws or a government valid, though it can be very effective.

Number 2 is not really a valid answer. It’s possible that the government has been invalid since its inception, or it has become invalid at some point. So, 1, 2 and 4 aren’t good answers.

Number 3 is a little bit more interesting. At least it adds a layer for us to peel away. There are people in Colorado who don’t agree to submit to the laws of Colorado. (If none of the other five million, there is at least me.) Why does the law apply to those who don’t agree to submit to Colorado law? And you’re back to the original question. Answer number 3 is just fluff.

Number 5 is really the only answer that would come close to being a good answer. However, if you’re going to claim number 5, you’d have to see whether the government qualifies as being valid by the standard of Scripture. I’ll tell you that it fails miserably.

This answer leads to a conundrum for government, because they explicitly reject that they might rule by biblical standards. They have rejected the Bible and Christianity as possible sources of guidance for government. THEY have rejected the only possible reason for their validity.

The only valid government is one that enforces God’s law as prescribed in God’s law. If they rule by God’s law, then they have God’s blessing in forcing people to do certain very limited things.

While I may not have covered every possible response to the question of why the government of Colorado is valid, I assure you there are no valid answers other than the biblical answer.

My made-up government, consisting of one citizen, is more valid than the state of Colorado, assuming I adopt God’s laws. They have no God-given or moral authority. All they have is the threat of force.

Oh, good news, I just made my wife and kids citizens as well, so now my government has 5 citizens. Care to join me? You might want to check out what God’s law says, but it is beautiful.

Abolish The Police, Police Abuse, Power Trip

Statistical Refutation of The Few Bad Apples Argument

Cop-worshipers often acknowledge that there are a few bad cops, just like there are a few bad doctors, construction workers, car salesmen, barbers, etc. I’ve never thought to ask what percentage they would admit are bad apples, but I’m going to guess they’d admit 1% of cops are bad.

That would mean that potentially 1% of citizen contacts could be bad. But even then, it’s not like that 1 cop in 100 goes through his day having only bad interactions. A bad cop can give a lot of unjust, illegal orders, and if people just do what he says, he gets his power trip, and nothing ever comes of that interaction. I would guess that happens a lot, and a bad cop could go a long time without really running into someone that causes him to flip out and show his true colors.

Let’s say a bad cop has one bad interaction every 2 years, meaning a lawsuit against him is filed or he gets some sort of reprimand in his file. Let’s say the average cop has 2 citizen contacts per day (to be conservative). There are 250 working days per year (52 weeks per year minus two weeks vacation). That would be 250 x 2 interactions per year, or 500. We’re assuming he can go two years without an incident, which would be  1 incident every 1000 contacts (as an estimate).

Working as a pair, it would only be 1 in 10,000 pairs of cops that are bad (.01²). Let’s assume a pair of cops still averages 2 citizen contacts per day. Out of these 10,000 pairs of cops, there is one bad pair. These 10,000 pairs have 2 contacts per day and work 250 days per year. They’re having 5 million contacts per year. And the bad pair still has an incident once every 2 years. So that means, 1 in 10 million contacts with bad pairs would have an issue arise.

This video says there are 53 million citizen contacts per year in this country. That means there ought to be about 5.3 issues per year with bad pairs of cops.

I realize I’ve made a lot of estimates and assumptions, but the problem is that I’ve posted many, many videos on this blog of bad pairs of cops, bad trios and more. Here are a couple more.

This guy was just videotaping, and 3 cops beat him, pepper sprayed him and tried to smash his phone. He’s suing them, and named them in the lawsuit. The odds of having 3 bad cops teamed up would be 1 in a million (.01³). That’s not even considering all the other cops that were present who didn’t lift a finger.

The guy in the video below was clearly not being confrontational, yet ended up having to be taken to the hospital, because a psycho nutjob cop came along. If this one guy was in the bottom 1% of cops and all the rest are good, why didn’t they stop this guy from abusing the citizen? There were at least two additional cops that showed up while the bad cop was abusing this guy. Not only that, but the Arlington PD said the force was justified in this case. Did you read that? Higher-up cops said the psycho nutjob did nothing wrong. Clearly, believing only 1% of cops are bad apples is preposterous.

Let’s say 2 higher-up cops reviewed this incident, and said the cop behaved the way a cop ought to behave. What are the odds that a psycho nutjob like this is cleared of any wrongdoing? Let’s say it’s 25% of the time. (75% of such incidents lead to consequences) That would mean that 63% of cops are also psycho nutjobs (.63³ = .25). 63% of cops being bad apples isn’t a few bad apples.

Even if you wanted to say that the odds of this psycho nutjob’s behavior being approved is 1%. (That is you think 99% of cops behaving like this guy face consequences, and I’d say you’re in lala land). You’re still saying that 22% of cops are bad. One out of five isn’t just a few bad apples. (Verify this for yourself by punching this into your calculator: .22 x .22 x .22. You’ll get about 1%.)

And I’ve shown an incident in the past where 50 or so cops abused people, and such incidents happened repeatedly in that era, and are still common today in different contexts. At that point, you’d have to admit that either the vast majority are bad, or there is some psychological thing that causes decent people to behave badly in big groups or that the whole system is broken. I don’t really care what the answer is, but it’s just clear to me that we should abolish the police.

Christianity

A Good Ancap Argument

Yesterday, I gave my thoughts on anarcho-capitalism. My purpose
was to get to this post and discuss at least one ancap’s approach
to battle the growing tyranny we face. I think there is a lot of
truth in what he says about unjust government, like the one we
have.

His argument is something I’ve never heard before. He has used
this argument to get people out of traffic tickets and tax bills.
He asks why the law applies to him. They’ll say because the law
says it does. Of course, that is a circular argument, and is
therefore a non-answer. Judges, IRS agents, lawyers with their
juris doctorate can’t answer the question.

I can answer the question of why just laws apply. There is no
answer for why unjust laws apply. The only reason why anyone
complies with unjust laws is because we will suffer violence at
the hand of government. The only rule for unbiblical, unjust
government, which has rejected God’s law, is might makes right.

The reason why just laws apply is because we are created in God’s
image, and His law is the definition of justice. Of course, we’ve
rejected that in this country. No self-respecting judge could
utter such a thing in an American court room. So, this argument is
very effective, and plays into the wheelhouse of this website. It
is presuppositional and theonomic. Choose Christ or choose
absurdity.

Christianity, Theonomy

Anarcho-Capitalists are Cool. Theonomists are More Cool.

Anarcho-capitalists believe there should be no government. I don’t know of any Christian anarcho-capitalists, but that certainly doesn’t mean there aren’t any. I’m very sympathetic to the anarcho-capitalists, and they make a lot of good points. An atheist anarcho-capitalist is much closer to espousing a biblical society than the typical American neo-conservative evangelical.

On a scale of government intrusion, 100 being an all-powerful dictator and totalitarian, and 0 being no government (anarcho-capitalism), I’d put the USSR at 90. They may have aspired to 100, but humans will always have limited resources to achieve our aspirations. I’d put the Democrat party at 55. I’d put the Republican party at 30, and the civil law of the Old Testament at 5. By my estimation, the difference between Republicans (most Christians) and the Bible is greater than the difference between anarcho-capitalism and the Bible.

One of the points that ancaps make is that it is immoral for anyone, including government, to force you to pay them. I wholeheartedly agree. There is no civil penalty for not paying taxes in God’s law. I think the Bible teaches that you ought to pay just taxes, but whether you pay or not is between you and the Lord.

However, where ancaps go wrong is that they take the principle that no one ought to force anyone to do anything out of thin air. This is a belief they take on blind faith. It is a biblical belief, but the non-Christian ancaps reject the only valid source for moral oughts. This is a huge problem as there is no foundation for their system.

The Bible gives very specific instructions to civil magistrates. Their ONLY job is to punish evildoers (Romans 13:1-7). They don’t get to build roads, protect wildlife, give people handouts or make up whatever laws they want. The only standard for good and evil is God’s law, and the only job of government is to enforce God’s law.
Therefore, maximum liberty isn’t zero government, but biblical government.

The last criticism I have of ancaps is that there has never been a successful society built on anarchy. When there is no biblical government, a tyrant will take over.

I don’t want to end on a criticism, so the last thing I’ll point out is that as I’ve listened to some ancaps, they’ve discussed love in society. I’ve never heard Republicans or Rush Limbaugh talk about love. Christians talk about love a lot, but I’ve never heard them talk about love in politics or society. I’ve only ever heard about it listening to non-Christian ancaps. Shaggy hippies seem to have co-opted and redefined peace and love, but those are concepts for which Christians should be striving.

Practical Ideas, Theonomy

Awesome Idea!

An idea for taking dominion from Jordan Wilson.

Here is the manifesto/mission:

Too many young men and women have no mission. Teenage girls and boys and twenty somethings have nothing to train for. No war to win. No summit to reach. If they have no mission, you’ll watch them get worldly – fast. They become narcissistic and preoccupied with worldliness. They go after shallow boyfriend/girlfriend relationships as ends in themselves. They spend their time with the trivial: gossip, video games, cars, fornicating, travel, the love of money. Things that give them the next kick of pleasure. Without a mission that is Christ-focused which extends beyond themselves most young people will fall away if not fully, at least to some degree. For the ones that don’t, the ultimate goal for the Christian young person becomes how pious they can be, and how much sin they can avoid, while accomplishing little. Maybe have a couple kids and snatch a few souls from hell in their life. Satan loves this dynamic. In the new testament, we see the gospel spreading from household to household.

Are you between the ages of 18-30? Do you want to love your neighbor? Do you want to see God’s will done on earth as it is in heaven? Do you want to have an eternal impact for the kingdom for centuries and even millennia after you die? (not merely a temporary “revival”). Do you want to be a central cog in creating 60,000+ disciples in the next 125 years where you live? Want to see a whole town be transformed from idolotry and Satanic living to living for the glory of God? Want have your children and grand children, walk down the street and visit the local pub / university / movie theater / restaurant / gym etc. filled with other Christans and ownd by a Christian to the glory of God? Where Christ is worshiped as Lord in every place? How much do you think about today how your actions will affect your great, great, great, great, great, great, great grand child?

Find a Godly wife who wants to be led. Share your vision with 24 other men. Have a mission that you all work towards together as households. Live in the same town and meet regularly and have a purpose as the heads of your respective households. Conduct business there. Create culture there. Have fellowship. Worship together. Work hard. Shine your light. Pray together. Bless, encourage and exhort one another. Help each other achieve the mission together. Each family have at least 5 children (maybe 10?). Also adopt a little foster kid or three, they’re the cheapest (you get paid actually). Train up your children in the Lord, have them buy into the same mission that you are on, and their children after them. Multiply. Apply the Bible to every area of life and society. Disciple your family. Bless the town where you live with acts of service, whatever your skills are. Evangelize pagan men. Disciple them too. Have them copy your lifestyle and join your mission together with their family’s. Win them TO something. Have your children marry other godly men and women who are also on the same mission. Teach them to pass the mission down to their children and their children after them. Maybe you already live in a town where you know these men and go to the same Church. Lead them on a mission, have them lead others. Inspire them. Have a vision for success with God as the one in whom you put your hope. You probably won’t see much of the fruit in your lifetime. Who cares. You’re planting seeds. It’s not about you anyways. When persecution comes, endure it. Be thankful you’re counted worthy to suffer for Christ.

If 25 faithful men each had households who had on average 5 kids, and that pattern continued within 5 generations there would be 60,000 of you 125 years later. Starting from just 25 men. Think that would impact your town? Even accounting for households that fall away over the years, they should be far outnumbered by households which are evangelized and discipled along the way. The better the culture that is created, the brighter the light is shining, the more that will join you. Take over every institution. Meet regularly with leaders from other towns who are doing the same thing across the country, and around the world. You won’t accomplish this mission without a fight, but it’s the fight you want to be in.

Has there ever been a better opportunity in history? We have the Bible in every language and readily available. We have the Holy Spirit as our comfort and Guide. We have media and technology to assist us. We have entire libraries of theology from throughout church history available on our screens for free. We have social networks to coordinate. Civilly, we have relative freedom to carry this out, certainly much more than the Israelites who were enslaved in egypt but still flourished and went from 70+covenanted servants (the house of Jacob) to millions within 400 years.

5 children
25 grand children
125 great grand children
625 great great grand children
3,125 great great great grand children
15, 625 great great great great grand children
78,125 great great great great great grand children
390,625 great great great great great great grand children
1,953,125 great great great great great great great grand children

Abolish The Police, Police Abuse, Power Trip

Who Will Confiscate the Guns?

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On one hand, I might scoff at anyone who raises the specter of Americans having their guns confiscated or being moved into a FEMA concentration camp. On the other hand, gun confiscation has already taken place on a limited scale as you can see in the video below. And Japanese Americans were put into concentration camps during WWII.

A couple of points I’d like to make about the video. I know people who claim that an overwhelming majority of cops are great, freedom-loving Americans who would never in a million years confiscate anyone’s guns. On the other hand, when it comes down to it, there is no shortage of cops willing to confiscate guns. It’s not bikers who will confiscate guns, or crackheads or Mexican drug cartels or inner-city gangs.

If there is ever a gun confiscation or mass internment into concentration camps, it will be Mr. local sheriff’s deputy or police officer. George Soros, Obama, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, or Harry Reid won’t be confiscating anyone’s guns.

I would hope many cops will refuse to obey such orders or enforce unjust laws, but there is ZERO evidence that any of them are willing to disobey orders. And, they certainly aren’t building up any spine in refusing to enforce unjust laws and orders now. They seem to be doing exactly what they’re told. It seems to be a human tendency to talk big about the bold, decisive actions we’ll take on the hill worth dying on until we get there. Cops are no exception.

My second point is that when the cops ask if you have a gun, it is not in your best interest to answer the question. You have no obligation to answer any question from the police. Whether you refuse to answer, or lie is something I will leave between you and the Lord, but I can think of two examples of people who have lied to government in Scripture and ended up in the Faith Hall of Fame of Hebrews 11.

I admit that it might cause problems to refuse to answer questions from police, but how much worse could it be than telling the truth like the people in this video did? We need to all get in the habit and get the gumption up to tell cops that we don’t answer their questions.

Resistance to Tyranny is Obedience to God

The Flag

Protest in Oregon that led to the takeover of national wildlife refuge building.

I absolutely think the Hammonds have been wronged by the federal government. Whether they intentionally or accidentally lit the fire that has led to their charges and imprisonment, biblically, they should only have to pay restitution for the damage they caused. Furthermore, I agree that the government ought not own vast swaths of land.

What puzzles me about the protest and the takeover of the federal building is that they are all waving the American flag. This is the flag of the government that is oppressing them, stealing from them and treating them wickedly. Why wave the flag of an evil entity at all?

Christianity

Apologetic Questions

A friend sent me a list of questions from the end of a chapter from a book called Already Gone by Ken Ham. I answered them for her, and I figured I might as well post them here. Of course many books have been written on each of these questions, but here’s my quick answers.

1. Why am I here?
To glorify God.

2. Who is God?
The Creator. One God in 3 persons. The Father is God. Jesus is God. The Holy Spirit is God.

3. Who is Jesus and why is He the only path to salvation?
Jesus is God in the flesh. We have broken God’s law, and God isn’t obligated to forgive us. He made only one way for us to be forgiven–through the blood of Christ.

4. Why the Bible and not other holy books?
It’s impossible for the Bible not to be true. The God of the Bible is the only explanation for the existence of truth. If the Bible were false, there would be no such thing as true and false.

5. Why should the Bible be the authority in my life when making decisions and moral choices?
It is God’s message to us, and God’s law is the only basis for saying anything is good or evil–moral absolutes.

6. Why set boundaries on sexuality and marriage?
Because God set the boundaries in His law. If I want to know what kind of oil to put in my car, I look in the owner’s manual to see what the car’s manufacturer says. As the Creator of humans, He knows the optimal conditions for our operation.

7. If we are the descendants of one man and one woman where did all the different races come from?
Microevolution. Certain characteristics lend themselves to survival in a certain place, and those characteristics are passed on to the next generation. Microevolution is a loss of genetic information whereas macroevolution is a gain of genetic information, which is impossible. Poodles had a forced evolution by breeders from wolves, but they’re still dogs. They could never breed a flying dog.

8. How does one determine the value of a human life?
The only possible way to answer this would be Scripture. We are worth the price Jesus paid for us on the cross.

9. Dinosaurs and the Bible – how does that work?
There is a lot of interesting things about this. I believe it is a dinosaur mentioned in Job 40:15-19. Alexander the great talked about encountering dragons and there are carvings of dinosaurs in temples in Cambodia.

10. What is wrong with the world (suffering and death) when God supposedly made everything perfect?
Sin. I contribute to what is wrong with the world when I sin. One time this kid asked me why God allowed his bike to be stolen, and then he admitted that he stole the bike he was riding.

11. How can “what is wrong with the world” be made right?
There will be sin in the world until Jesus returns. We can contribute to the improvement of the world by taking dominion– having many godly children, evangelism, doing a good job at work, making money–good deeds in general.

12. Does science disprove or confirm history in the Bible.
In order to do science, you must presuppose that the laws of nature will be the same in the future as they’ve been in the past. That principle is called the uniformity of nature. Christianity is the only worldview that explains why we can presuppose uniformity. This is a huge problem for atheism especially. Science is impossible apart from the God of the Bible.

For a specific example of how biblical young-earth predictions have been proven true, they recently sent a satellite to Pluto. If Pluto was billions of years old, it would be a cold, dead rock with many craters. But they found that it has few craters. This indicates that there is recent volcanic activity. Also, it has a nitrogen atmosphere, which would be impossible if it were billions of years old.

13. Why does the age of the earth really matter to me and my life today?
If there was death before the sin of Adam, that would be a problem for Scripture. Jesus also talked about a recent creation in Mark 10, and the six-day creation is mentioned in the 4th commandment.

14. Why is it important that I believe in a literal 6-day, 24-hour creation?
Same as #13.

15. Did we evolve from ape-like creatures?
Evolution is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard. What are the incremental steps between a shrew that can’t fly and a bat that can? Half a wing is an impediment. And there are a million examples of things like that from a cellular level to things like animal evolution.

The simplest way to think about it is that DNA code contains information. Information only comes from intelligence. Mutations and natural selection only decrease information. You can’t have humans evolving from another species if it requires an increase of information. It’s impossible.