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.
Theonomy

Bo Knocks It Out of the Park

Here’s a quick answer from Bojidar Marinov to a question many Christians have asked in the last few days about the Syrian refugees.

Q

Why are we responsible to take Syrian refugees at all? Don’t the rich stable Muslim nations surrounding the area own this responsibility? Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations have not taken one single refugee! and yet they have offered to build 200 mosques in Germany, it’s pretty obvious what is going on here, their purpose is to invade and demographically conquer Europe.

A

I see that argument used by many Christians, and I wonder, since when do we Christians complain of being given the opportunity to show love to our enemies and evangelize them? Is this another example of the moral degradation of our American suburbian churchianity? Instead of actively working to save these people and help them in their distress so that we can evangelize them, we complain that we are forced to tolerate their presence? And then we are talking about missions and evangelism?

By the way, Arab nations took the heaviest responsibility. Lebanon has admitted close to 1.5 million refugees (more than 25% of its population) and Christians in Lebanon not only don’t whine about it but actively work to help them. Jordan accepted a huge number too.

Why didn’t Saudi Arabia take them? Because, Tim, these refugees don’t want to go to Saudi Arabia. They consider Saudi Arabia no different than ISIS. DO YOU SEE THE OPPORTUNITY IN THIS, TIM? THESE PEOPLE ARE RIPE FOR EVANGELISM! THEY ALREADY HATE ISLAM!

And we now as Christians are making sure that they start hating Christianity as well.

Ours is not Christianity. Ours is a worship of ourselves. We look at these people in the same way those murderous mothers in the abortion mills look at their babies: as a nuisance.

Abolish The Police, Police Abuse, Power Trip, Theonomy

A Bad Meme

My confused Christian friend posted this.
My confused Christian friend posted this.

I don’t care for this meme for several reasons.

1. Being a cop isn’t that dangerous. Here is a list of the most dangerous jobs in America. Cops don’t even make the top 10.

1. Fishing
2. Logging
3. Pilots
4. Trash Collection
5. Roofing
6. Structural iron workers
7. Construction
8. Farming
9. Truck Drivers
10. Mining

2. Cops enforce the unjust, unconstitutional and unbiblical laws of a nation under God’s judgment. Unless you’re some kind of socialist/fascist (which Christians cannot be, even though it seems most Americans are socialist/fascist) that loves the direction this country is going, I don’t see why you would thank those who unflinchingly enforce unjust laws.

3. If you support police, do you support your county clerk who is almost certainly issuing same-sex marriage licenses? Cops make sure that county clerks issue those licenses. Kim Davis wasn’t hauled off to jail by the judge, but by police.

4. Police forces are funded by money taken by force. No one consults me on whether I agree to pay these taxes. I would like to unsubscribe to many government services, and investigate free-market alternatives (including security services), but that is rarely ever an option. I’m forced to pay for the monopolistic government option whether I like it or not.

5. There shouldn’t be any group of people who have special rights in this country–people who aren’t held to the same standard as everyone else. This is unbiblical and unconstitutional.

6. It has been my personal experience and abundant anecdotal evidence points to the fact that all too often police don’t know the law–even laws they ought to know. It would be one thing if they were humble about their ignorance, but they seem to become beligerant when people don’t blindly follow their orders, even when the cops are clearly in the wrong.

7. More than 1000 people per year are killed by police. It’s hard to tell how many of these killings are murder and how many are justified. I also think that a certain percentage that are technically justified could be prevented if cops weren’t so trigger happy. However, I think many of those 1000 killings per year are murder. It doesn’t matter how much the laws favor cops and their use of deadly force. The Bible defines murder and cops may be cleared by a human judge and yet stand before the perfect Judge as murderers.

Abolish The Police, Theonomy

Romans 13 Abuse

It seems like almost every time I discuss what Christians should be doing about the terrible state of our country, they whip out the ridiculous interpretation of Romans 13 card.  You can see a few examples here, and here (where a pastor comes out saying that Romans 13 means they must rent their parking lot to the cops) as just a couple examples.

This is another egregious example from a conversation on Facebook. I posted a reasoned response to his original post, and his comeback is to type “Romans 13”. He didn’t offer any sort of interpretation. He just expects that Romans 13 just so obviously teaches blind obedience to government that just its mere utterance is adequate to win a debate, as if I’ve never read that before. It’s kind of funny, so I thought I’d post a picture of the conversation with the names removed.

r13convo

I’ve written about the proper interpretation of Romans 13 before, but here are some more thoughts.

Colossians 3:20 says, “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.”

Ephesians 5:24 says, “But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.”

As you can see, children should obey their parents, without exception. Wives should submit to their husbands without exception.  No Christians take these verses to mean that children and wives obey no matter what. If a mother tells her kids to rob a convenience store, they should disobey. If a husband tells his wife to murder someone, she should disobey.

Those verses place no qualifications on the obedience of children and wives, but we still realize they’re not absolute. Romans 13 places qualifications on obedience to government (saying magistrates are ministers of God, and telling us their role is to punish evil), but so many Christians say we should shut up and obey.

And in case you think you should obey the government unless it tells you to sin, you’re being naive.

Theonomy

How Corrupt Is Our Government?

I had a conversation with a Christian friend, and I said our government is corrupt. He told me he’s not willing to write off our government yet.

So the question is: how corrupt is our government, and at what point do we write it off?

I will answer the question, with a question: How bad does it have to get before you’re willing to write it off?

Maybe if they stole money from people who haven’t been shown to be guilty of anything? Maybe like civil forfeiture, where police have been known to take cash from innocent travelers?

Maybe if they destroyed private property rights? Like banning smoking on private property, or eminent domain abuse?

Maybe if they set up Nazi-style checkpoints and stopped travelers on the highway impeding their free travel?

Maybe if they bomb a hospital?

Maybe if they fought never-ending unjust wars?

Maybe if they stole money from every property owner in the country to educate other people’s children in government curriculum?

Maybe if five unelected lawyers in Washington D.C. dictated to the entire country that homosexuals can get “married”?

Maybe if there was a standing army in every American city that the British would have killed for in 1776?

Maybe if they allow 55 million babies to be murdered in their mother’s womb?

We live under a wicked government. There is no doubt of that. Could it get worse? Of course, it can. It’s not the worst government in the world. But Christians are only adding to its decay when they quote Romans 13 and falsely say that passage demands obedience to even a bad government.

My solution is a peaceful solution–the solution being advocated on this website–if the government tells you to do something preposterous or immoral, don’t do it. Do the right thing. It seems so obvious to me, but Christians are just too busy twisting Romans 13 to do the right thing.

hitler2

Abolish The Police, Police Abuse, Power Trip

Unbelievable Cops XXXI

So, this guy on a bike is videotaping people running the stop sign, which is perfectly legal. I’ll admit I generally don’t like being videotaped. But we have to start thinking twice before calling the cops on people. At this point, it’s the citizens versus the cops, and I’m not going to call the cops on people unless I have a good reason. I hope my fellow citizens will do the same for m.

You can flip through until the 6 minute mark where this lying, blustering, power-tripping cop comes up to this guy and threatens to arrest him. But, this guy knows the law, probably better than the cop, and he gets the cop to back off. It is beautiful. We need to learn the law of the land. We need to teach our children the law, and what their rights are. This cop thinks he can get away with intimidation, because Americans don’t stand up for themselves and don’t know the law.

Conservatives have a bad case of cop worship. They also have a bad case of soldier worship. The soldiers (supposedly) are standing for our rights, shedding their blood to defend the Constitution. The cops are trampling the Constitution. I think this contradiction shows the inherent contradiction in conservative thinking. Conservatives are supposed to be in favor of limited government. Cops are big government.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQJkdTWDF8U

Abolish The Police, Police Abuse, Power Trip

Kidnapping Cops

  1. The 1st Amendment allows people to photograph in public– especially government officials need to be held accountable.
  2. You don’t have to provide ID unless you’re suspected of a crime.
  3. Being a suspicious person is not an arrestable offense.
  4. We need to abolish the police and return to a biblical system such as the one we had at the time of this country’s founding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lsyW_flfB4

Theonomy

Bitcoin: There Is No Biblical Basis for Government Currency

What is the biblical justification for the government to coin
money? There is none. The U.S. government went off any kind of
precious metal standard, and now they print paper that isn’t based
on anything. It would be a joke, except that no other country
bases their money on anything either.

When I was about 12 years old I liked collecting NBA basketball
cards. I had a book that would say what a certain card was worth,
and my dad would always say, “It’s worth what someone will pay for
it.” That was pre-internet, and the only way to sell anything would
have been by word-of-mouth, classified ad or a card shop. Card
shops would only buy wholesale. Classified ads were expensive, and
word-of-mouth was limited in scope. I couldn’t have gotten the
amount printed in the books for any of those cards, though on
paper I was doing pretty good.

U.S. dollars are valuable, because people accept them as
payment–not because it’s backed by anything. The government has
no business issuing it, and it can manipulate it (they are
manipulating it) to its advantage. Since 2008, they’ve created
trillions of dollars out of thin air and kept interest rates at
zero. This is making it very difficult for people on a fixed
income. These people worked their whole lives to save for their
retirement and their income is based on the interest they earn,
which is near zero. What they’re doing is immoral.

How Does Bitcoin Help?

I’m certainly not an expert on Bitcoin, but I’m very excited by
what I’ve learned. Bitcoin isn’t based on anything, but there will
only ever be a certain amount issued. So, just like the basketball
cards and the U.S. dollar, its value will be determined by the
free market. The price of it fluctuates. But it fluctuates based
on market forces. No one (no government) can manipulate it.

Bitcoin is also not a company owned or controlled by anyone. It is
a computer program that runs on thousands of computers around the world. Every computer keeps track of every transaction. No
government can come in and shut it down.

The Advantages of Bitcoin

What websites have done to newspapers, Bitcoin technology will do
to banks. They will eventually be obsolete. (I give banks 20 years
at most before they start going out of business en masse.)

With Bitcoin, you can send any amount to any account anywhere in
the world in an instant. No government can take any part of it or
control any part of it. That means credit cards, checks, cashier’s
checks, money orders, Western Union, wire transfers, etc. are
obsolete. You can set up a Bitcoin “wallet” for free and
anonymously, and you’re ready to send and receive Bitcoin.

The Drawbacks of Bitcoin

A lack of merchants is a problem right now. Not many people know
about it. The last time I looked, there were two businesses in
Colorado accepting payment in Bitcoin. If you can’t pay your
electric bill or buy groceries with it, the usefulness will be
severely limited.

Changing dollars into Bitcoin isn’t easy or cheap from what I’ve
seen. I bought some from a website by depositing cash into a Wells
Fargo checking account owned by some random stranger. I then took a picture of the teller receipt and emailed the picture to them.
Within a couple hours, they sent the Bitcoin to my wallet. It
wasn’t too hard, but I don’t know what kind of recourse I would
have if they chose not to perform. They took a 5% commission,
which isn’t cheap, but I thought it was reasonable as compared to
exchange rates for foreign currency I’ve paid in the past.

How To Fix The Problems

I think Bitcoin solves a lot of problems with the Federal Reserve,
unjust weights and crony capitalism rampant in America’s banking
industry, and I’m excited about the future of it.

I think the problems will go away as more and more people start
using it. Exchange will be easier if more people were using it. If
a lot of people were using it, you could put an ad on Craigslist
and exchange at zero cost, person-to-person. If you are a world
traveler, you could buy Bitcoin with dollars person-to-person with
zero exchange costs. Travel to another country with a different
currency, and exchange Bitcoin to the local currency at zero cost
person-to-person.

Another big obstacle would be the ability to pay bills with
Bitcoin. If Wal-Mart started accepting Bitcoin, the usefulness
would go through the roof. But I think the government would flip out if they tried that. We need more individuals to start using it and local businesses to start using it.

I’m willing to accept Bitcoin for my business, and if more small
businesses started accepting it, it will become more and more
popular.

Let’s get government out of the currency business. The free market should determine which currency is best, but I have a feeling the banks and fascist governments aren’t going down without a fight.

Taxation, Theonomy

Stick It to the Tourists

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Fremont County voters approved the indefinite extension of a 2% lodging tax yesterday. It seems perfect, because no one who voted for it actually has to pay the tax; I doubt there are many registered voters living out of a motel.

Isn’t it great that we can “legally” steal money from people who most likely are just visiting. After all, when we go out of town, we are charged a lodging tax. Never mind the golden rule; the true golden rule of modern Christianity is, “Government can do whatever it wants.”

Ultimately all taxes are collected at gun point. But we Americans are a meek people, so it rarely ever comes to that. Nevertheless, that is what you voted for if you voted in favor of this tax–the use of force and violence to collect funds to advertise to tourists. While voters may have legalized this tax under man’s law, it remains illegal under God’s law.