Ask For The Old Roads

Thinking About "Liberty and Tyranny" by Mark Levin

2009-08-16T13:04:00.001-07:00

I regret to inform you that I am part of the smeensy minority of Amazon reviewers who does not love "Liberty and Tyranny" by Mark Levin with a-hunk-a-hunk-o-burnin' love. I liked and appreciated it, and gave it four stars. This blog post is for writing about the book without being subject to the Amazon reviewer guideline.

It's not controversial that FDR is the archetypal American statist.

I confess to having been unhappy when comparisons were made between President Obama and Franklin Roosevelt. But reading Levin's book made me reconsider. Obama and Roosevelt both ran as sober, responsible, centrists, then did massive bait-and-switches after being elected, engaging in massive government expansions and interventions that were for the purpose of strengthening political alliances instead of benefitting the country. History is pretty much repeating itself.

This book is a reasonably good description of America's current predicament. But as I read that Statists were power-mad, dishonest, doublethinkful, irrational villains (which they are a lot of the time) who turn everything they get their grubby mitts on to ruin (which they do a lot of the time), I wondered "If Statism is so awful (and I truly believe it is) why is it so successful?" This is a question that largely goes unanswered in this book.

There's something about Statism that an average person (unfortunately) finds quite appealing. Statism taps into the powerful human drive to avoid personal responsibility for one's actions. Levin frames the debate as an intellectual argument between two competing systems. But he fails to demonstrate how enticing statism can be to people.

Statism has become the dominant philosophy in Europe, under the label of "the social-democratic state." But how much the state controls and takes care of its citizens isn't really up for democratic debate anymore. What people get to vote on is whether they want chocolate government ice cream or vanilla government ice cream, or whether they want government sprinkles or not on their government ice cream. All you have to do is read "America Alone" by Mark Steyn to see how this is headed to a long, Eurabian night of ruin.

By the time I got to the end, and read the Conservative Manifesto, I was thinking to myself, "None of these things are ever going to happen." Levin himself provided the answer as to why none of these things are going to happen. The Republican Party has decided to brand itself as the Statism Lite Party, a me-too disher-outer of goodies, a me-too pusher of the opium of entitlements. They nominated a nominal conservative with statist tendencies as their standard-bearer.

Even discussing a conservative manifesto is pointless until Americans recognize the corrosive effects of statism on their adulthood and their character. Americans were nervous when Newt Gingrich talked about dismantling the welfare state in 1994. They should have been celebrating in the streets. But they weren't, because they loved government sprinkles on their government ice cream more than being free. And those things won't happen until there is some sort of radical change in the way Americans feel about certain things.

For example, as long as FDR is thought of by Americans as the warm, friendly voice of the fireside chats, instead of someone who lied through his teeth about his agenda, extended the depression, permanently expanded government to buy a majority with the taxpayers' money, bullied the Supreme Court into rubber-stamping his agenda, etc., the best conservatives can hope for is a few minor victories here and there, now and then, along the glide path to serfdom.

As long as there are a nontrivial number of Americans like Peggy Joseph, the best conservatives can hope for is a few minor victories here and there, now and then, along the glide path to serfdom.

Maybe occasional liberty is the best our species can hope for. Paraphrasing Robert Heinlein...

Throughout history, tyranny is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit libery--here and there, now and then--are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject tyranny. This is known as “bad luck.”

Psalm 132 - Who's Building A House For Who?

2008-12-12T22:49:00.000-08:00

I appreciate the Bible Gateway website for making it possible for me to enter a Bible chapter in Google and get an immediate link to that chapter.

The psalm for December 13 in the One Year Bible is Psalm 132 in its entirety. This psalm is a recap of parts of Israel's history.

One thing that's a little unusual about this part of Israel's history is that there are two completely different narratives about the start of the building of the temple.

Some people might say verses 1-5 reference 2 Samuel 7, where David, after defeating his enemies on all sides, aspires to build God a house. David considered it inappropriate that he should live in a palace of cedar while the Ark of the Covenant was in a tent. God gave a lengthy response through Nathan the prophet, saying among other things, that He never had an issue with the Israelites not building Him a house of cedar. God did approve the project, but left it to be fulfilled by David's son Solomon.

Others might say verses 1-5 reference 1 Chronicles 21, where Aruanah's threshing floor became the building site for the temple during a time of dire crisis, a time of plague in the nation of Israel. The plague ended after David purchased the threshing floor, built an altar and offered sacrifices there. By the way, God answered by fire when David called on him, but that's another story.

Verses 6-8 references 2 Samuel 6, where the Ark returns to Jerusalem.

Verses 11-12 reference 2 Samuel 7 again, where God promises to build the house of David, and that one of David's descendants would be the Messiah. Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2 mentioned this idea.

There are many references in the book of Deuteronomy to "the place the Lord shall choose." as the location for various sacrifices and festivals. Jerusalem is that place. But where is God now? Where two or more are gathered in his name.

God's anointed one could be taken as either the current king, or the future King, none other than the Lord Jesus Christ.

That brings up an interesting question: should I summarize a chapter based on 1) just the chapter itself, 2) that chapter and everything else that's been written up to that chapter, or 3) the Bible themes referenced by that chapter? I'm leaning toward option 3).

Here's my attempt to summarize Psalm 132 in 140 characters: David wanted to build God a house; God said OK, but had a better idea; to build the house of David, and have Christ be descended from him.

UPDATE: I didn't like my first summarization because it didn't say anything about this psalm being a historical recap. A new attempt: Let's review: David wanted to build God a house; God said "Ok, but later; meanwhile, I'll build David's house and Christ will come from him"

Everything John Lennon Knew Was Wrong

2008-12-09T16:26:00.000-08:00

I'm thinking about John Lennon today, as yesterday was the 38th anniversary of his tragic death at the hands of Mark Chapman. But that's not what got me thinking about John Lennon. These young ladies got me thinking about John Lennon on December 8, 2007.

They were on the corner of Ford Parkway and Cleveland Avenue in St. Paul in the early afternoon of Saturday, December 8, 2007. They made and displayed these signs as a personal project. I was intrigued by their level of interest, and conversed with them briefly. I considered it ironic that they were unaware that the previous day was the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

What does John Lennon have to do with this blog? He's the voice for the big ideas that are the opposite of the big ideas of this blog. There are so many people who are inspired by the John Lennon song "Imagine." I consider it a great pity that Lennon was so eloquent a spokesman for such horrible ideas...

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one.

The apostle Paul wrote "If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied." (I Corinthians 15:19, NAS). Lennon thought that nations and religions were the cause of wars, but he obviously didn't read James 4, which tells us that wars and strife come from our own divided loyalties between God and the world. The Buddhists say that one should stop saying "This is mine" and "This is not mine," but even in heaven, there will be things one has that no one else has.

Sometime in 2007, I read about seven Columbian youth who experienced dramatic visions of hell. I found it curious that out of the many people in hell described in these visions, only one of them was mentioned by name...

The place was divided into different sections of torment and suffering. One of the first sections that the Lord allowed us to see was the "Valley of the Cauldrons" as we called it. There were millions of cauldrons. The cauldrons were inlaid at the level of the ground; each of them was burning with lava inside. Inside each one was the soul of a person who had died and gone to hell.

As soon as those souls saw the Lord, they started to shout and screamed, "Lord, have mercy on us! Lord give me a chance to get out of this place! Lord, take me out and I will tell the world that this place is real!" But the Lord didn't even look at them. There were millions of men, women and young people in that place. We also saw homosexuals and drunkards in torment. We saw all of these people shouting in such great torment.

It shocked us to see how their bodies were destroyed. Worms were coming in and out of their empty eye sockets, mouths, and ears; and were penetrating the skin all through their bodies. This fulfills the word of God written in the book of Isaiah 66:24 "They shall go forth; they shall gaze upon the dead bodies of those who have rebelled against Me; for their worm shall not die, nor shall their fire be quenched; they shall be an abhorrence to all mankind." Also in Mark 9:44, "Where their worm never ceases and the fire is not put out." We were just horrified at what we were watching. We saw flames about 9 to 12 feet high. Within each flame, there was the soul of a person that has died and went to hell.

The Lord allowed us to see a man who was inside of one of the cauldrons. He was upside down and the flesh on his face was falling in pieces. He remained watching the Lord intently; and then started to shout and call on the name of Jesus. He said, "Lord have mercy! Lord give me a chance! Lord take me out of this place!" But the Lord Jesus didn't want to look at him. Jesus simply turned his back on him. When Jesus did this, the man started to curse and blaspheme the Lord. This man was John Lennon, the member of the satanic music group "The Beatles." John Lennon was a man who mocked and made fun of the Lord during his life. He said that the Christianity was going to disappear and Jesus Christ would be forgotten by everyone. However, today this man is in hell and Jesus Christ is alive!! Christianity hasn't disappeared either.

I understand this is a most unpleasant thing to contemplate, but everyone has to, sooner or later, preferably sooner.

The Road To Serfdom - Some Housekeeping

2008-12-04T19:22:00.000-08:00

The copy of The Road to Serfdom that I ordered from Barnes and Noble came in last week, and on further review, I was unclear on some things.

The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek is a much larger project than just The Road to Serfdom, which is Volume 2 of a projected 19 volumes. At this point, nine of the 19 volumes have been published.

This particular edition of The Road to Serfdom has a Tralfamadorian quality to it, as it contains the prefaces Hayek wrote for the 1944 British edition, the 1956 American paperback edition, and the 1976 edition. The introduction written by Milton Friedman for the 50th anniversary edition is in the back of the book.

I will attempt to do some summarizing for this book, just as I am doing with the Bible and the Federalist Papers. Bruce Caldwell, editor for the Collected Works, mentioned in the Introduction that the 1956 American paperback edition became a cultural phenomenon because of the publication of a condensed version in the Reader's Digest. The Reader's Digest had a circulation of 8,750,000 at the time, and was read by many people who aspired to being literate or well-read. As I think of this, I recall the song "Marry the Man Today" from the musical "Guys and Dolls," written in 1950:

Marry the man today
Give him the girlish laughter
Give him your hand today
And save the fist for after.
Slowly introduce him to the better things
Respectable, conservative, and clean
Reader's Digest
Guy Lombardo
Rogers Peet
Golf!
Galoshes
Ovaltine!

I seem to be rambling a bit, but the point is that condensation and summarization helped Hayek's message to get to a much wider audience in a way that could be understood.

The Road To Serfdom - O Happy Error!

2008-11-25T14:18:00.000-08:00

Sometimes wrong predictions open up opportunities. One such opportunity occurred for my father in the 1960's, as reported by INFORMS...

One of Dr. Bass's many landmark achievements came when he developed a marketing model that tracks the distribution of durable goods. It was 1966, and color TV sets recently had been introduced to American consumers. Sales were booming, but while everyone from Walla Walla to Wall Street looked at the industry and saw no end in sight, Dr. Bass alreadv was doing some "back of the envelope" model building that indicated otherwise.

Using differential equations, he plotted a peak in sales and a subsequent decline occurring in a short time frame.

He forecast that sales would reach a plateau in 1968, only two years away. Companies had built capacity for fourteen million color TVs, and he was predicting sales would peak at around seven million or a little less.

"I got lots of phone calls and mail from people about this, and some of them were angry," Dr. Bass recalls. "Some Wall Street people in particular were especially nasty."

The lack of recognition for the study even extended to some business school faculties, Dr. Bass says. "It involved a differential equation and a certain amount of mathematics, and they just didn't understand that sort of thing at all."

But in 1968, just as Dr. Bass had predicted, color TV sales reached their peak. Some of the manufacturers went out of business and had to ship their machinery to South America.

In 1969, the mathematical model was published in a research paper in Management Science Theory, and it later became known as the Bass Model.

Now what does that have to do with The Road To Serfdom, you ask? Well, Joseph Brandt, director of the University of Chicago Press in 1944, predicted that The Road To Serfdom would sell as few as 900 copies, and maybe as many as 3000, if Walter Lippmann would write the foreword. Fortunately, Brandt was on the low side by at least a couple of orders of magnitude, and possibly a couple more when one considers the number of copies in different languages, and the number of samizdat copies distributed in Eastern Europe while it was under Communist rule.

James 4 - Your Problem Is Not What You Think It Is

2008-11-20T18:41:00.000-08:00

The Bible rotation at Ask For The Old Roads will be the Old Testament passage for a particular day, the New Testament passage, the Psalm and the Proverb. Since the last post was on Ezekiel, this post will be on today's New Testament passage, which conveniently is the fourth chapter of James.

There are lots of preachers who preach on the glorious promise in Mark 11:24:

"Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."

While this promise is true, there should be a little asterisk, and at the bottom of the page, it should say "Terms and Conditions Apply." James 4:3 is one instance of those conditions.

What is envy? Envy is when I have anything less than joyful gratitude over anything someone else is, does or has. If I have envy in my prayer requests, I might as well just start over, and have a talk with God about the state of my heart.

As I read this chapter, I hear a dialogue in my mind's ear, as if James was anticipating the objections of his readers.

Some of his readers might think "All right, fine, my problem is that I believe getting what I want will make me happy. But So-and-so over there, they didn't do the right thing in getting what they have!" James 4:11-12 addresses that thought.

Other readers might think "I don't want to take what I want from anyone else. And I don't want to judge anyone else for what they have. I'm perfectly willing to work and to work hard for what I want." But it comes back to why I want what I want. Maybe God has a better plan for the use of my time, talent and treasure.

So how can I summarize James 4 in 140 characters? Here's my attempt: Wars and strife come from envy, avarice, judgement and self-will, which come from unexamined divided loyalties between God and the world

Federalist 1 - Setting The Stage

2008-11-18T19:16:00.000-08:00

I laughed when reading the first little bit of Federalist 1 because the language was much denser and more opaque than Ezekiel 27.

For those unfamiliar with the Federalist, the Federalist Papers were written and published during the years 1787 and 1788 in several New York State newspapers to persuade New York voters to ratify the proposed constitution.

In total, the Federalist Papers consist of 85 essays outlining how this new government would operate and why this type of government was the best choice for the United States of America.is a collection of 85 essays, written in 1787 and 1788, and published in several New York state newspapers. All of the essays were signed "PUBLIUS" and the actual authors of some are under dispute, but the general consensus is that Alexander Hamilton wrote 52 (and the link shows which 52 are considered to be written by Hamilton), James Madison wrote 28, and John Jay contributed the remaining five.

They became such a valuable commentary on the Constitution that they were later collected and republished in book form.

I consider it within the scope of this blog to write a little bit about Hamilton, Madison and Jay, but I'm not going to do it right now. Here's the first paragraph of Federalist 1:

To the People of the State of New York:

AFTER an unequivocal experience of the inefficiency of the subsisting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America. The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the UNION, the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world. It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.

In my undergrad days, people used the expression "intuitively obvious to the most casual observer" to describe something that was self-evident. The "subsisting federal government" refers to the Articles of Confederation, drafted in 1777 and ratified in 1781. While there are various things one could say about the inefficiency of the Articles, one major item was the time it took for the Treaty of Paris, ending hostilities between America and Britain, to be ratified by Congress.

I read Hamilton as appealing not only to practical concerns, but to the idea that the people stood at a crossroads of history. British rule was unacceptable, but the Articles weren't working all that well either. If all government reduces to who's stronger than who, the entire project of self-government is pointless, not just in America, but everywhere else, from now on.

I have the project of condensing the Federalist into 85 tweets of 140 characters, but at this point, condensing each paragraph into 140 characters seems like a pretty good idea as well. Here's my summarization of the first paragraph of Federalist 1:

Your choice matters now and later. Either self-government is possible and good, or all government reduces to who's stronger. Choose well.

The Road To Serfdom Unavailable At Barnes And Noble

2008-11-15T12:42:00.000-08:00

Specifically, it was unavailable at the Barnes and Noble at Ford Parkway and Cleveland Avenue in St. Paul, Minnesota. Worse, the young man looking it up on the computer asked if I was inquiring about "The Road to Surfdom."

I ordered the "Everything Including The Kitchen Sink" version, The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents--The Definitive Edition (The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek), but I notice that when I Google "Amazon The Road To Serfdom," the first result is the 50th Anniversary Edition, with a new introduction written by Milton Friedman.

But it may be a little while before I get to Road-To-Serfdom blogging in earnest...

Ezekiel 27 - The Doom Of Tyre

2008-11-13T12:52:00.000-08:00

I know you are wondering why I'm starting to blog about the Bible with Ezekiel 27. I'm doing this because this is today's Old Testament reading in the One Year Bible. The One Year Bible contains an Old Testament reading, a New Testament reading, a section from Psalms, and a section from Proverbs for each day of the year. No, they don't have a reading for February 29!

Actually, the reading is from Ezekiel 27:1 to Ezekiel 28:26, but I have another reason to only consider one chapter per post.

Ever since Twitter became a big deal, it has been a thought of mine to summarize each chapter of the Bible into 140 characters, the length of a tweet. It's only been pointed out countless times that the chapter and verse divisions of the Bible are not only not inspired, but sometimes a downright hindrance to seeing the meaning of a given passage. But you use the chapter divisions you've got.

All of Ezekiel 26 is a message about the future destruction of Tyre, so this chapter is continuing a prophecy started in the previous chapter.

The nautical references in this chapter refer to the part of Tyre, now in the south of Lebanon, that was founded on a island in the sea. It doesn't look like an island now, because Alexander the Great built a causeway from the coast to the island in 332 BC.

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Ezekiel goes on and on about the various kind of trades different nations conducted at Tyre, to set up how shocking its going to be when Tyre is brought to ruin.

Wikipedia says "In nineteenth century Britain, Tyre was several times taken as an exemplar of the mortality of great power and status - both by John Ruskin in the opening lines of The Stones of Venice, and by Rudyard Kipling's 'Recessional'."

Matthew Henry comments "And this is intended to stain the pride of all worldly glory, and, by setting the one [the opulence of Tyre] over-against the other [the future ruin of Tyre], to let us see the vanity and uncertainty of the riches, honours, and pleasures of the world, and what little reason we have to place our happiness in them or to be confident of the continuance of them; so that all this is written for our learning."

So here's the 140-character summation for this chapter...

Ezekiel 27 - Tyre's opulent prosperity as a world trading center makes it boast in its beauty, people will be shocked at its future ruin.

Welcome To Ask For The Old Roads!

2008-11-11T21:05:00.000-08:00

How many million blogs are there? How many blogs have I started? Why, sweet why, does the world need another blog? Why, sweet why, do I need to start another blog?

Because as far as I know, no one is blogging about what I will blog about here.

I don't exactly remember when it was, but there was a time when I was asking people to conduct a thought experiment with me. I asked, if they were given the power to require three books to be read by humanity, which books would they select? My choices were at first, the Bible, the Federalist Papers, and The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. However, King Banaian suggested that I replace The Wealth of Nations with The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek. And given that King is an economist and all, I decided to take his suggestion.

So this blog is what will happen when ideas from those three books connect. Part of that will be connecting the ideas in these three books with current situations. Part of that will be clothing the ideas in current language. There will be connections with blogs with similar visions. But given the way I've blogged in all the other blogs I've started, I'll probably write some posts that aren't even tangentially related to this original vision.

The title of this blog is from Jeremiah 6:16, from a chapter describing God's exasperation with the wickedness of Jerusalem, and its eventual destruction:

This is what the LORD says:
"Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, 'We will not walk in it.'

I hope this blog helps...