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.
Capitalism, Christianity

Good Information

This doesn’t fit my normal theme, but it’s so good I have to post it. I hate buying a car, but here are some good tips on car buying from a car salesman:

1. The best time to go is at the end of the day (about 2 hours from closing time) on a rainy or cold day. First the dealership will be empty so no wait going into finance. Second they likely have not sold many cars that day and are more ready to make a deal. The times we have discounted cars the most are those times.

2. You don’t get a better deal from paying cash or having a check ready from your bank. When you do this they don’t make any money from you financing with them. If you tell them up front is a cash deal, they know they have to make all their money on the price of a car. They will be more willing to discount the car if they know they will make money from you financing.

3. They are not always giving you as much as they say from the trade in. If they are not discounting the sticker price or if it is barely discounted, but giving you a lot on your car, they are really taking the discount and applying it to your trade in. My dealership doesn’t do this so people come in expecting an unrealistic trade in price and they don’t get it because we already discounted the price on the new car.

4. Save yourself time haggling by working the deal out online. You know when you are on their website and it pops up that you can chat with someone? Go ahead and do this because they will give you a great deal to get you in the dealership. Go ahead and work your trade in numbers then to so you aren’t surprised when you get there. When you do this, you simply have to walk in, test drive the car and the haggling is over with.

5. Some of the add ons they offer in financing are worth it and some are not. If you aren’t putting money down, GAP insurance can be great. If you are putting money down it might not be worth it. Do some research ahead of time to know what kinds of things will be offered.

Abolish The Police, Police Abuse, Power Trip

Which Gang Is Worse?

I’m sure the drug gang the blue gang is after are no good. Just like the mob who distributed alcohol during prohibition, these drug gangs are violent. I’m as opposed to drug use as anyone, but the clear solution to drug violence is to legalize drugs. That is the biblical solution, by the way–God determines justice–not man. But if you did that, many members of the blue gang would have to be laid off.

Also, no matter how bad we think someone might be, they are human beings created in God’s image. They’re not animals. They have the right to a speedy trial, the right to remain silent, the right to an attorney, the right to be presumed innocent. The most important job of police is to protect people’s rights–including people we suspect of being scoundrels–especially those we suspect are scoundrels. But that’s just a joke to the blue gang.

Biblically speaking, the cops (government tax collectors) would be held to the same standard as everyone else. They wouldn’t get to go around pointing guns at people. Everyone who points a gun at someone is fair game to be shot themselves.

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The whole system of government we have is so messed up that it can’t be fixed. It has to be expunged and we have to start over.

Theonomy

Tough Position for Anti-Theonomists

The question was posed as to why so few systematic theology books speak to an issue such as economics. Below is how Bojidar Marinov answered.

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“Any area of practical study and application is deadly to anti-Theonomists, for it exposes their nakedness. If they want to be Biblical, they are forced to go to the Law of God, which makes them an easy target for Theonomists who point to their inconsistency. If they want to be faithful to their anti-Theonomic position, they have to rely on humanistic theories which can be easily exposed as anti-Biblical. If you go back and read Joel’s and mine articles against the Two Kingdoms rhetoric, you will see that most of the time all we need to do is wait for these guys to talk on some practical issue – economics, politics, law, etc. – and show how they go against their own theology.”

“Therefore, the safest bet for all these seminary rats is to exclude such issues from their systematic theologies in order to avoid exposing themselves as inconsistent and as theological hypocrites. Keep only obscure hyper-spiritualized irrelevant topics under the title of “theology,” and relegate life and action and practical thought to the realm of “natural law” and common grace.”

Practical Ideas, Resistance to Tyranny is Obedience to God

Looking for Something You Can Do to Fight Tyranny?

A lot of people wonder what they can do to fight the tyranny we face. I think we should be looking for something local and something we can do while still living a normal life. Well, this guy found something. If nothing else, go out and turn all the red light cameras around. You will cost them ticket revenue and the manpower to go out there and re-face the cameras without actually vandalizing anything.

Taxation, Theonomy

What Belongs To Caesar?

So many Christians quote the passage below (Mark 12:13-17) and say Jesus was teaching that you have to pay taxes, and that taxation is valid, because Jesus even gave his blessing here to Rome’s taxation. But is that really what He was saying?

Paying Taxes to Caesar

13 And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, totrap him in his talk. 14 And they came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances,[c] but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to paytaxes to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?” 15 But, knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why put me to the test? Bring me a denarius[d] and let me look at it.” 16 And they brought one. And he said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said to him, “Caesar’s.” 17 Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they marveled at him.

Rome’s occupation of Israel was God’s judgment on them, along with this tax. Additionally, the individuals attempting to trap Jesus were in rebellion to Christ, they were carrying Roman coins with blasphemous sayings on them into the temple. They were deserving of God’s judgment. I don’t think God’s use of Caesar to judge Israel is something that should be taken to legitimize such taxation or even a less brutal form of taxation. It certainly can’t be taken to mean that taxation by threat of violence is something that ought to be desired.

Jesus telling these individuals that they ought to pay the tax is not the same as saying that this particular tax is righteous. And Jesus wasn’t saying that future governments can implement whatever tax they might dream up. He just didn’t even speak on that, because He wasn’t addressing Caesar, but the taxpayers. When Jesus said they they were to render unto God the things that are God’s, He would also have told Caesar that he needs to render unto God the things that are God’s. It may be Caesar’s image on the coin, but God owns everything.

You see this scenario play out in the book of Philemon where Paul sends the slave Onesimus back to Philemon, his slave owner. This isn’t the Lord blessing the institution of Roman-style slavery or human ownership. It is taking things one step at a time, knowing that the gospel applied to culture will kill slavery eventually. It did destroy slavery in Rome, and it will destroy unjust taxation someday.

For a much more thorough examination of this passage, from someone much smarter than me, check out this article.

Abolish The Police, Police Abuse, Power Trip

Stanford Prison Experiment

I don’t normally get into psychology, but this is pretty interesting. Here are highlights of the documentary to think about.

1. The other guards could have stopped the bad guards, but didn’t. This corresponds to modern day police. When one cop starts abusing someone, the others join in, or at the very least don’t do anything to stop the abuse.
2. The other prisoners let the prisoners who stand up against the abusers stand alone. A good example of this is when someone doesn’t pay the IRS, and stands trial before a jury of their peers (who you would think would also like to not pay their taxes). They are found guilty an overwhelming majority of the time. Rather than root for the guy who is willing to be one of the first people to put their neck out for liberty and justice, people send him to prison.
3. Authority corrupts people. As they said in the documentary, the prison guards were normal people, who when given authority went nuts.

It’s crazy to think that these guinea pigs completely bought into their roles in what they knew was an experiment. The sad truth is that our system is no more valid than the nuts in the Stanford basement. There is no moral foundation for our system of government other than might makes right.

You give a guy a costume, a badge and a gun, tell him he’s a cop and he’s willing to go out and destroy fellow human beings for selling untaxed cigarettes (e.g. Eric Garner). The badge is a piece of tin, with no authority or validity other than his willingness to commit violence.

Abolish The Police, Police Abuse, Power Trip

Self-Contradiction

A guy on Facebook posted this:

cop-rights

The position he takes is that he’s protecting our rights. That is one of the public relations talking points of government, but it doesn’t really work. If they’re really concerned about our rights, why do they force us to pay them? Why do they violate my right to private property in order to protect my rights?

The whole system is fundamentally flawed. They’ve built this enormous edifice of government and law enforcement on weak and shifting, self-contradictory sand (to borrow an analogy from Christ).

I’d much rather they didn’t exist, and I’ll protect my God-given rights myself, or by paying someone voluntarily, if it becomes necessary. It makes no sense that the government coerces me to protect me from coercion. They need to find a new way. Might I suggest the biblical way? Anything else will lead to these self-contradictions.

It’s hard to respect the heart of those who rob me blind so they can pretend to be my defender.

When a cop pulls you over, is he protecting your rights?
When a cop pulls you over, is he protecting your rights?
Abolish The Police, Police Abuse, Power Trip

A Good Start

It happens occasionally…local law enforcement stands up to the federal government. In this case, Elkhart County, Indiana sheriff stood up to the FDA for harassing a farmer selling raw milk. A letter threatening to arrest them for trespassing and telling them that he needs to be informed of any further action they take beforehand was all it took to get the feds off the farmer’s back for good. That was four years ago.

All it took was a letter from the sheriff and the feds have left the farmer alone.

Because it’s so simple, so good, so right and so easy. The story has received new attention, because the sheriff was asked about it and wrote about it for the local newspaper.

It’s not like he did something so spectacular, daring and bold. He wrote a letter and they backed off. Why can’t sheriffs across the country write a letter? How many injustices do the feds commit? And all it would take is a letter from a lesser magistrate.

This is what we need, and it’s exactly what is not happening. This is why the local cops are just as bad and tyrannical as Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Obama. They do what they’re told almost always, whether it’s right or wrong, as if they have no idea what right or wrong is.

If this kind of thing happened regularly and often, (because it needs to happen often), if this type of story was old hat, we could take this country back. But until then…FB_IMG_1441597484967

 

Abolish The Police, Police Abuse, Power Trip

Fourth Amendment?

Apparently, this cop has never heard of the 4th Amendment, which would require him to have suspicion that a crime has been committed before pulling someone over. I guess in his mind he can make up for such pesky nuisance with bluster and intimidation.

We need to teach our children to stand up to these people, know their rights, like the guy in the video.

Abolish The Police, Police Abuse, Power Trip

Point Proven

There are all kinds of problems with this video offering an apologetic for police brutality. But using the data cited in the video reveals a whole other issue with the system.

A commenter on the video says:

If officers contact 53,000,000 people per year, and there are 670,000 cops, and let’s say 250 working days per year (52 weeks minus 10 vacation days). There would be 167 million cop days per year. Fifty-three million contacts divided by 167 million cop days means that on average a cop has contact with 0.32 citizens per day. Or the average cop contacts one citizen every 3 days. If we can get cops moving at the breakneck speed of 1 citizen contact per day, we could lay off 2/3 of all cops.

I just saved this country billions of dollars.

A cop-lover, antagonistic to the embarrassing math, pointed out that a lot of cops work 12-hour shifts rather than 8-hour shifts. This would change the math, and the number of contacts per shift change to 0.5 contacts per shift. The rise in contacts per shift is only due to longer shifts. Contacts/hour would remain the same, and the point remains.

Personally, I would like to see police abolished, but the point is that government workers are all terribly inefficient, because they’re paid by money taken by force. The “customers” are forced to pay whether they’re happy with the service or not.

I happened across this video that illustrates the point that so many cops could be laid off with little effect, because the government is so wasteful. Enjoy the proven point in this 1 minute video.