The State

The State

Thomas Allen

The state is an abstraction. So, when we speak of the state doing something, we are really speaking of the elite, either as an individual or a group, who controls and acts in the name of the state. Likewise, when we speak of the rights, privileges, and immunities of the state, we are really speaking of the rights, privileges, and immunities of this controlling elite who acts in the name of the state.

Who is this elite that controls the state? Originally, it was a monarch. Now, it is the oligarchs. The oligarchs consist primarily of plutocrats and high-ranking politicians, bureaucrats, and judges. Accordingly, it is more correct to use the terms “oligarch” or “oligarchy” instead of “state.”

Instead of developing spontaneously, the state is a manmade invention — a manmade institution and political entity. It is not a discovery, nor has God preordained it. (In many respects, the state is idolatry because many people worship it and look at it as their savior.)

The state originated in Europe during the seventeenth century following the breakup of the medieval political order. Before the seventeenth century, the state as such did not exist.

Max Weber defines the state as “a relation of men dominating men, a relation supported by means of legitimate (i.e., considered to be legitimate) violence . . . [it] is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.” Yoram Barzel defines the state as consisting of “(1) a set of individuals who are subject to a single ultimate third party who uses violence for enforcement and (2) a territory where these individuals reside, demarcated by the reach of the enforcer power.”

An essential attribute of a state is that it possesses a monopoly on the use of force, either legitimately or illegitimately, to impose its will.  Consequently, it must disarm the people. This assertion of a monopoly of the means of violence gives the government’s claim to provide protection more credibility and makes resistance more difficult.

To exercise its violence, the state establishes a monopolistic organization of violence over its territory and centralizes the control of violence. As a result, it increasingly monopolies public life and absorbs all other centers of power. Specifically, it concentrates power. Such concentration of power is necessary for a state to survive.

Moreover, the state represents both a domestic and international political order. It is a sovereign power.

Another essential attribute of a state is that it is territorial. It is the sovereign of a particular geographical area.  That is, it is a legal entity that occupies a definite space. Its authority is contained within this space. However, to achieve this goal, the state has to deny citizens (or more correctly subjects) all other loyalties. Consequently, the state seeks to destroy all intermediate bodies between it and individuals except associations that it approves.

Before the rise of the state, customs regulated conduct and not the law. Tax collection was difficult and sporadic. Men were not drafted for war or labor. With the arrival of the State, law replaced custom (although the law often codified customs), taxes became more collectible, and men were drafted for war. This ability of a state to demand and easily obtain “blood and money” from its subjects distinguishes it from all other political arrangements.

A great advantage of the state to the oligarchs is privileges, immunities, and other benefits that they and their associates receive that are denied to others.

With the insatiable lust for power, the state is the enemy of freedom. Freedom can only be achieved by restricting and containing the state. Historically, federalism has been highly effective in this endeavor as long as the federation lasted.

Sovereignty is another essential attribute of the state. In Europe, according to Bassani, sovereignty “is eminently juridical and implies the idea of an unlimited and illimitable concentration of power at a given center.” (Bassani, pp. 49-50) Consequently, “sovereignty requires potentially unlimited concentration of power in a territory.” (Bassani, p. 50) Thus, the European concept of sovereignty is statism, absolute political power residing in the state.

For Americans before Lincoln’s War, sovereignty meant the supreme legislative authority or the primary power to make laws. It did not imply or require the concentration and centralization of power, which federalism dispersed. For most Americans before Lincoln’s War, sovereignty resided in the States, i.e., sovereignty resided in the people of each State independent of all other States. Therefore, the American concept of sovereignty has an antistatism function.

Sovereignty is indivisible and illimitable. However, a sovereign power can delegate rights. Nevertheless, these delegated rights do not make the body receiving them sovereign because the sovereign that grants them remains the superior will. In Europe, the sovereign is the state, i.e., the oligarchs. In America before Lincoln’s War, it was the people of each individual state separately. After Lincoln’s War, the oligarchs usurped the powers of the people of the States and concentrated them in the federal government and, by that, made those who controlled the federal government, the oligarchs, sovereign.

Reference

Bassani, Luigi Marco. Chaining Down Leviathan: The Ameican Dream of Self-Government 1776–1865. McClellanville, South Carolina: Abbeville Institute Press, 2021.

Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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The Staff: Did He Or Didn’t He?

 The Staff: Did He Or Didn’t He?

Thomas Allen

When Jesus sent out his disciples on a preaching mission, did he allow them to take a staff, or did he forbid them to take a staff? According to Mark, he allowed the disciples to take a staff. According to Matthew and Luke, he forbade them to take a staff.

Mark 6:8: “and he charged them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only; no bread, no wallet, no money in their purse;”

Matthew 10:9-10: “Get you no gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses; no wallet for your journey, neither two coats, nor shoes, nor staff: for the laborer is worthy of his food.”

Luke 9:3 “And he said unto them, Take nothing for your journey, neither staff, nor wallet, nor bread, nor money; neither have two coats.”

Which of the two versions of the story is correct? Both cannot be correct.

Samuele Bacchiocchi, who believes that the Bible is infallible but not inerrant, claims that Mark used a different source than that used by Matthew and Luke, and this accounts for the difference between them. He argues that the writers of this story believed that the actual details were unimportant. What was important was Jesus sending his disciples to preach the Gospel. What they were told to carry or not to carry was unimportant. To the writers of this event, the event was more important than the details.

Robert Wilkins, who believes in the inerrancy of the Bible, notes that in Mark Jesus allows his disciples to take a staff. However, he fails to note that according to Matthews and Luke, Jesus told them not to take a staff.

John Wesley attempts to resolve the conflict between Matthew and Mark by arguing that if a disciple had a staff, he could take it. However, if he did not already have a staff, he was not to get one and take it. (One may infer Wesley’s resolution to this conflict, but the text does not seem to imply it.)

Charles Gore acknowledges that in Mark the disciples are allowed to have a staff while in Luke they are not. He credits the discrepancy to a mistake — a failure to recollect correctly Mark’s words. In any event, the stress is on the purpose of the mission, preaching the Gospel, and not on the gear that the disciples were allowed to carry.

In The Interpreters Commentary, Howard Kee recognizes that according to Matthew, the disciples were not to carry a staff, but he fails to note the conflict with Mark. Yet, he does point out other differences between Matthew and Mark about this event. Likewise, William Baird comments that according to Luke, the disciples were not to carry a staff, and he also fails to notice the conflict with Mark. However, Lindsey Pherigo, mentions the conflict between Mark and Luke. He remarks that the purpose of taking the staff is unclear. Nevertheless, The Interpreters Commentary offers no resolution of the staff problem.

In The Abingdon Bible Commentary, J. Newton Davis states that while in Matthew the disciples were not to carry a staff, in Mark they are allowed to carry a staff, which was indispensable for a long journey. About Luke’s disagreement with Mark on the staff, J.A. Findlay believes that Luke and Matthew used Q as their source for this detail instead of using Mark. (Q is a hypothetical written collection of Jesus’ sayings.)

Adam Clarke believes that the staff forbidden in Matthew and Luke was one used for walking or defense. The staff allowed in Mark was one used to carry their clothes on if they had to remove them because of heat. (Why could not the same staff be used for walking and carrying clothes?)

In The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, Homer Kent resolves the disagreement between Mark and Matthew by stating that a disciple could carry a staff (in agreement with Mark) if he already had one. However, the text only weakly supports this solution if it supports it at all.

In Peake’s Commentary, H.G. Wood offers the solution of the church fathers to the staff conflict between Mark and Matthew. The staff forbidden in Matthew and Luke was ordinary while the one allowed in Mark was an apostolic wand of office.

Elizabeth Reed claims that the text in Matthew and Mark means that the disciples were to take only one staff, probably one apiece, as an aid in walking. They were not to carry several or a staff for self-defense against physical harm. (She seems to be straining the text beyond breaking. No hint is given in these texts to suggest that none means one.)

Most of the other commentaries that I consulted either followed Wilkins (noted that Mark allowed taking a staff) or failed to comment on the staff problem. They do not mention the discrepancy.

Bacchiocchi and Findlay give the most likely solution to Mark allowing a staff and Matthew and Luke forbidding a staff. Matthew and Luke used a different source than Mark used. However, the solution offered by Wesley and Kent (if they had a staff, they could take it, but if they did to have one, they were not to procure one) is a viable solution although the text only weakly supports it if at all. Anyway, this particular detail is irrelevant to the story, its importance, and the lessons that it was intended to teach.

References

Bacchiocchi, Samuele. “Biblical Errancy And Inerrancy.” Endtime Issues No. 102 – Part 2. August 19, 2003.

Clarke, Adam. Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible. Abridged by Ralph Earle. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1967.

Gore, Charles, Henry L. Goudge, and Alfred Guillaume, editors. A New Commentary on Holy Scripture. New York: The Macmillian Co., 1928.

Eiselen, Frederick Carl, Edwin Lewis, and David G. Downey, editors, The Abingdon Bible Commentary. New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1929.

Laymon, Charles M., ed., The Interpreter’s One-volume Commentary on the Bible. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1971.

Peake, Arthur S., editor. A Commentary on the Bible. New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, n.d.

Pfeiffer, Charles F., editor. The Wycliffe Bible Commentary. Chicago: Moody Press, 1962.

Reed, Mrs. H.V (Elizabeth). Bible Triumphant: Being a Reply to a Work Entitled 144 Self-contradictions of the Bible, Published by Andrew Jackson Davis. Harvard, Illinois: H.V. Reed, 1866.

Wesley, John, Adam Clarke, Matthew Henry, et. al. One Volume New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1893, 1957.

Wilkin, Robert N. The Grace New Testament Commentary. Editor Robert N. Wilkin. Vol.  1. Denton, Texas: Grace Evangelical Society, 2010.

Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Why I am not a Republican

 Why I am not a Republican

Thomas Allen

I am not a Republican for many of the same reasons that I am not a Democrat. Both promote destructive policies — only the Democrats generally promote them with more alacrity and vigor and are more successful.

The comments that follow are directed at the Republican and Democratic leaders and their spokesmen and apologists in the media. Although they are not directed at the rank-and-file Republicans and Democrats, most of the rank-and-file do adhere to and follow their leaders in the matters discussed below.

Republicans and Democrats are proponents of “American Exceptionalism.” This exceptionalism is the creed of equality, democracy, and universal natural rights, which both promote. This creed is the defining principle that makes America America. However, they disagree somewhat about what constitutes “natural rights” and especially what equality means.

Both Republicans and Democrats prefer the constitution that Lincoln (as furthered developed by Presidents Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and carried to fruition by the Warren Court and especially Justice William Brennan), which is the current constitution, to the constitution that the founding fathers gave the country.

While Democrats only give constitutional government lip service, Republicans claim to believe in constitutional government. Yet they have done nothing to reduce the size of the federal government. As under Democrats, the federal government continues to grow under Republicans — perhaps, not as fast, but it still grows.

An example of the hypocrisy of the Republican support of constitutional government is the unconstitutional Department of Education. When Republicans controlled the federal government, it did nothing to abolish the Department of Education despite their promise to abolish it. Instead of abolishing the Department of Education, they have used it to consolidate federal control of education in the United States, which is why the Democrats established it. Thus, the Republicans have collaborated with the Democrats to give the federal government control of education in the United States.

Republicans and Democrats both revere Father Abraham (Lincoln) and St. Martin Luther King the Divine — only Republicans more so than Democrats. Republicans have even elevated them to Deity.

Like Democrats, Republicans are racial nihilists and promote a multiracial and multicultural country and society. Both are globalists. Neither have any objections to miscegenation, and both promote other policies that eventually genocide the American Negro.

Both Republicans and Democrats promote diversity as a strength and great virtue. Therefore, both ignore Madison’s warning about too much diversity, which plutocrats use to transfer ever more wealth and power to themselves. Thus, plutocrats control both parties.

Although Democrats ardently support abortion, Republicans do not oppose abortion — their rhetoric to the contrary. In spite (or because) of abortion being a highly successful weapon in the genocide of the American Negro, Democrats have ardently promoted abortion for more than a half-century. Except for their rhetoric, Republicans stopped seriously opposing abortion decades ago.

Both are Lincolnian-Hamiltonians. Nonetheless, Democrats prefer much more governmental intervention in the economy than do Republicans. Thus, Democrats are much more fascistic than are Republicans. Whereas Democrats are proponents of a command-and-control economy, Republicans favor a market economy — at least in rhetoric. (Republicans claim that they support a free-market economy, which they do not. Otherwise, they would move to abolish all the regulatory agencies, which are unconstitutional anyway, of the federal government.)

Contrary to their assertion otherwise, Republicans support the welfare state. Democrats strongly promote the welfare state for the same reason that Bismark, the archconservative German chancellor, did. (Bismark instituted the welfare state in Germany: The welfare state makes governmental control of the people easier because people who receive benefits from a welfare program are less likely to object to other governmental programs.) The primary difference between the Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans want to make controlling people more cost-effective.

Like the Democrats, Republicans like to create problems and then like the Democrats express outrage at the consequences. Many of the problems that both Republicans and Democrats rail against result from the welfare state, which both endorse and support.

Despite their rhetoric during political campaigns, both support the warfare state. They prefer war to peace. Neither object to using the United States military to bully other countries and to interfere with their internal affairs. After all, war is necessary to impose the American creed of equality, democracy, and universal natural rights on everyone. More important, war transfers ever more wealth and power to the rich and powerful, who control the federal government.

Both the Republicans and Democrats support the police state. Moreover, with the Transportation Security Administration, secret warrants and arrests, indefinite detention, and torture centers, Republicans have led the charge. All this has been done in the name of the war on terrorism, which is really a war on the American people. (Terrorism results from the foreign intervention and meddling policies of the Republicans and Democrats.)

Just as the Democrats accept the thief of the 2020 presidential election, so do the Republicans. Without Republican succor, Democrats could not have stolen the election. Even the Republican-controlled Supreme Court abandoned its constitutional duty to rectify the illegalities of the election — and so did Republican-controlled State legislatures.

Both Republicans and Democrats reject intergenerational duty to ancestors and posterity. If they cared about their posterity, governmental debt would not be exploding. If they cared about their ancestry, they would not promote conditions that lead to racial and cultural genocide, yet they promote programs and policies that lead to racial and cultural genocide. 

Neither Democrats nor Republicans want to dismantle the leviathan federal government and return to the constitutional government of the original Constitution. Both want to use it to advance their agendas. They consider the Constitution to be so elastic that they make it a worthless scrap of paper.

Neither supports the doctrine of States’ rights except when they can use the States to oppose a policy that the other party advances with which they disagree. 

Republicans and Democrats are hostile to traditional conservatives, who are the true conservatives. In marginalizing traditional Southern conservatives, both parties have been highly effective.

Nevertheless, Republicans and Democrats do differ in some aspects. Democrats are more vindictive and spiteful than Republicans. On the other hand, Republicans are recreants. While Democrats are bold, Republicans are timid.

Democrats are Dixiephobic, Confederaphobic, and albusphobic. Except for neoconservatives and establishment conservatives, Republicans are generally not Dixiephobes or Confederaphobes. Moreover, not all Republicans are albusphobes.

While Democrats are fervent supporters of gun control even to the point of disarming the American people, Republicans are hesitant in imposing more gun control. Nevertheless, Republicans are always ready to comprise and support more gun control. Furthermore, Republicans have not removed any restrictions on gun ownership when they controlled the presidency and Congress.

While Democrats favor restricting energy production and usage, Republicans favor cheap and abandon energy. However, as with its other principles, Republicans are always willing to compromise away cheap and abandon energy.

As for COVID-19, the Republican approach has been much less authoritarian than has been the Democratic approach. Moreover, Republicans who did take an authoritarian approach to COVID-19 have been much more eager to relinquish their control than have been Democrats.

Most Republicans favor lower taxes, and Democrats favor higher taxes. Nevertheless, both favor exploding federal budgets.

Republicans are eager to compromise and abandon their principles (if they have any). Perhaps, Republicans compromise their apparent principles so easily and quickly is because their real principles differ little from those of Democrats. Contrastingly, Democrats resist compromise and abandoning their principles as evil as they may be. 

Democrats are on the left and so are the Republicans. Both are socialists (mostly of the democratic fascist variety) at heart; only the Democrats are more open and honest about being socialists.

Another major difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Democrats are about a decade ahead of Republicans. (The homosexual agenda evidences this conclusion. For years, Democrats have promoted homosexual marriages and finally succeeded in legalizing them over the objections of Republicans. Now most Republicans accept homosexual marriages.)

Most of the time, arguments and disagreements between Republicans and Democrats are about details and strategies and not about principles. 

The above description of Republicans explains why most establishment conservatives and neoconservatives loath President Trump. Trump deviated from too many of these Republican standards. Yet, many people supported Trump because he did deviate from some of these positions that Republicans had stolen from Democrats.

For the most part, Republicans are imitation Democrats; they just lack the courage to become full-fledged Democrats. The reason that I am not a Republican or a Democrat is that Republicans are too much like Democrats and Democrats are too much like Republicans.

Governor George Wallace once said that there was not a dime’s worth of difference between the Democrats and Republicans. That is still true, and a dime is worth only a fraction of what it was when he made this remark.

Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Defending the South

Defending the South

Thomas Allen

[Editor’s note: This article was written in 1989.]

    Many Southerners who might otherwise favor or be indifferent to an independent South oppose independence because they believe that the United States armed forces are the only thing stopping Soviet domination. Many Northerners, primarily conservatives, who might otherwise be indifferent to Southern independence oppose independence because they rightfully see the South as the bulwark of conservatism in the United States. They also see the South as a primary source of soldiers, officers, and materiel in the war against communism. (In spite of their platitudes about self-government, Northern liberals oppose Southern independence because they have an insatiable compulsion to rule, reform, rape, and rifle the South.) That the United States are defending the South from Soviet militarism and that the South needs the United States to defend her against the Soviet Union is one of the great myths of the latter half of the twentieth century.
    Ninety miles from Florida is one of the largest military camps in the world. Soviet bombers routinely fly along and occasionally over the coast of the eastern Southern States. What kind of defense does the United States provide the South against this threat? None! No effective anti-aircraft defense system is protecting the South. There are no anti-aircraft missile batteries. Very few fighters are available to intercept the Soviet bombers. The few available fighter squadrons are mostly part of the national guard, and only a few of them have the most recent fighters. There are not even any AWACS to observe this Soviet threat. If the Soviet Union were serious about dropping nuclear bombs on major Southern cities, they would meet little opposition. Would an independent South stand so naked before such an awesome foe? No!
    Coastal defense is perhaps even more dismal than air defense. With the largest Soviet base outside the Soviet Union just ninety miles from Florida, one would think that a significant part of the United States navy would be in the Gulf of Mexico and along the southeast Atlantic coast. But where is the bulk of the United States navy? It is in the North Atlantic, Mediterranean Sea, Pacific Ocean, South China Sea, and Arabian Sea. If the Soviets were determined, they probably could land several divisions along the Gulf Coast encountering nothing more threatening than a Coast Guard cutter or two hunting drug smugglers. Again, would an independent South stand so naked before such an awesome foe? Again, the answer is no.
    One of the most terrifying aspects of the latter half of the twentieth century has been the potential for nuclear war. What have the United States done to protect the South from nuclear war? Nothing! There is no civil defense system. There is no antimissile system. While the Soviet Union has built an elaborate civil defense system, the United States plan to rely on an untried, unworkable mass evacuation of panic-stricken city dwellers into the countryside where no shelter, food, or other provisions await them. While the Soviet Union has developed and placed in the field antimissile defense systems, the United States continues to draw elaborate schemes on paper. In short, the United States’ defense against Soviet missiles is to hold the South hostage to nuclear annihilation. Would an independent South have ever made herself so vulnerable? Of course not!
    The United States government is striving to turn Central America and Mexico into Soviet colonies. (Southerners will be fortunate if Congress prevails over the President. Perhaps then Southern blood will not have to soak the grounds of Central America before it becomes part of the Soviet Empire.) If (when?) Mexico were to become a Soviet colony, would the United States increase and improve their defense of the Mexican border? If it did, such increases and improvements would be mostly for a show with little substance. Most likely they would do nothing.
    The United States have virtually no control over their southern border now. There is little hope that they would be able to control it as millions of Americans from Central America and Mexico flee their Soviet conquerors. Along with the refugees will come Soviet agents, who will come as saboteurs, terrorist, and spies. Would an independent South have lost control of her border with Mexico as have the United States? No! Certainly, an independent South would put forth more effort to defend herself from a communist force in Mexico than the United States ever would. [Editor’s note. By substituting agents of drug dealers, Chinese Communists, and Middle Eastern terrorists for Soviet agents, one has a good description of what is happening today along the Mexican border.]
    History of the twentieth century has shown that the United States are no threat to communism in general and none to the Soviet Union in particular. The United States entered World War I to make Russia safe for communism. In World War II, the United States made Eastern Europe safe for communism. (One of the ironies of World War II is that one of the professed reasons for fighting the war was to rid the world of fascism. All of the noncommunist countries that fought Germany and Italy had already adopted a semi-fascist economic system and have since adopted a semi-fascist social system.) The Korean War and Vietnam War were fought to make China and Indo-China safe for communism. (These statements of fact are not intended to castigate the brave soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen who fought or thought that they were fighting to defend their homes and loved ones and for what they considered noble ideals. They are intended to castigate their political leaders, who knew that the real purpose of these wars was to advance communism.) Now it appears that the United States are trying to start a war to make the Middle East safe for communism. First, they tried to goad Lybia into war. Now they are trying with Iran. If they can succeed in getting Iran to sink one or two United States warships, they will have the old “Remember Fort Sumter, the Maine, and Pearl Harbor; they fired the first shot; we are innocent” battle cry that has been used so successfully so many times to dupe the gullible American into useless war.
    Even a cursory review of how the United States have treated in the past and continues to this day treat anticommunist governments shows that the United States have no animosity toward the Soviet Union or communism. The United States have tried to overthrow nearly every anticommunist government there is. They have probably overthrown more than the Soviet Union has. The more an anticommunist country has tried to be friendly with the United States, the harder the United States have endeavored to overthrow the government of that country and to turn that country into a Soviet colony or an impoverished socialist dictatorship allied with the Soviet Union.
    With such a record of defending against Soviet aggression and communism, can the South really depend upon the United States to defend her? Only a fool or someone oblivious to the history of the twentieth century could possibly believe that the United States would defend the South. The only hope that the South has of defending herself against communism and the Soviet Union lay in a free and independent confederation of free and independent Southern States.

Copyright © 1989 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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The Democratic Party

 The Democratic Party

Thomas Allen

Today, the Democratic Party is America’s version of Europe’s social democratic parties. It is a party of progressive egalitarianism. Like these parties, the Democratic Party promotes a cradle-to-grave welfare state, diversity, unlimited third-world immigration, multiculturalism, multiracialism, and globalism. Also, the Democratic Party advocates indoctrination through government schools and a social system where perversions, libertinism, hedonism, narcissism, and wokeism are encouraged and traditional values are suppressed. In economic matters, like the European social democrats, it espouses a form of democratic fascism with government-business partnerships, i.e., managerial capitalism and the managerial state (a social justice-welfare state with a regulated market economy — welfare capitalism). Like all left-wing parties, the Democratic Party forcibly takes the property of others, often enslaves them, and at times kills them to satisfy its lusts, desires, biases, and prejudices. However, unlike the European social democratic parties, the Democratic Party pursues foreign intervention (imperialism) to impose its ideals on the rest of the world. Yet, the Democratic Party has not always been a fascist or semi-socialist party.

The neoconservatives and most of the alt-right claim that the Democratic Party is the party of racism, slavery, segregation, and “Jim Crow.” This is a highly misleading exaggeration. Racists (whatever that now means — see “Are You a Racist?” by Thomas Allen for more than 700 definitions of “racist”) and segregationists dominated both the Republican and Democratic parties until after World War II. All parties in the United States presided over slavery until 1865. (Even President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation protected slavery in areas under the control of the Union army when Lincoln issued it.) However, today, the Democratic Party is free of these charges except it fosters discrimination against and racial hostility toward Whites.

(According to the argument of the neoconservatives and the alt-right, today’s Democrats are racists, segregationists, and advocates of Jim Crow because some Democrats were racists, segregationists, and advocates of Jim Crow in the past. If their argument is correct, then today’s Republican Party is the party of repatriationists and eugenists because Republican President Lincoln wanted to repatriate the Negroes and Republican President Roosevelt was a eugenist.)

Unfortunately for the neoconservatives and most of the alt-right, their assertion that the Republican Party is the party that advocates freedom and civil rights for the Negro is flawed. Following Lincoln’s War, Republicans supported civil rights, voting rights, and privileges for Blacks not because they cared about the Negro. Even the abolitionists only cared about Negroes in the abstract; they did not care about them as concrete individuals. Republicans wanted to use the Negro to retain power and to finish genociding the Southerner — to finish what the Union army failed to do.

Later the Democratic Party usurped this endeavor to finish genociding the Southerner from the Republicans. In the 1950s with the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education and the civil rights and related laws in the 1960s, the Democratic Party earnestly sought to complete the work of the Republicans to genocide the Southerner. In this drive to exterminate Southerners, the Democratic Party has sought to genocide all Whites despite Whites controlling the Democratic Party. Like the Republican Party, the Democratic Party has never cared about the Negro per se; both parties have always used the Negro to genocide the Southerner and to gain and retain political power. To them, the Negro is just a useful tool.

In the nineteenth century, the Democratic Party was the party of “the old republican American tradition: resistance to unconstitutional powers and a proper relationship between state and general governments; strict economy in federal expenditures; opposition to corporate welfare in all its manifestations; sound money and a stable currency; peaceful neutrality and the cultivation of international trade; and more broadly the spirit of personal and political independence.”[1]

Under the leadership of William Bryan, the populists captured the Democratic Party. Then, with the election of Woodrow Wilson, the progressives gained control of the Democratic Party. Under Franklin Roosevelt, the progressives morphed into fascists. President Lyndon Johnson transformed the Democratic Party into the social democratic party that it is today. Thus, the Democratic Party now stands for the opposite of what it stood for 130 years ago.

Endnote

1.  Brion McClanahan, “Rejecting the ‘Proposition Nation,’ Chronicles, April/May 2021, p. 21.

Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Conservatives

 Conservatives

Thomas Allen

Conservatives divide into two groups: Rationalists, who are faux conservatives, and Traditionalists, who are real conservatives. Rationalists include neoconservatives and establishment conservatives, which include Hamiltonian-Lincolnians, big-government conservatives, and the typical Republican politicians. Traditionalists include principled conservatives (Jeffersonian-Calhounians, paleoconservatives, traditional Southern conservatives, fusionists, and the Old Right) and Enlightened conservatives (the New Conservatives of the 1950s as represented by Russell Kirk and who subordinate the individual to society, subordinate freedom to virtue [for them, virtue is freedom] and rights to duty, subordinate reason to undifferentiated tradition to the point of rejecting reasoning, scorn reason and principle, reduce virtue to prudence, and depend heavily on Providence).

While Rationalists claim that America is a proportional or creedal country dedicated to the ideas of equality, democracy, and universal natural rights, i.e., American Exceptionalism, Traditionalists reject this notion. Instead of advocating loyalty to abstract ideas as do the Rationalists, Traditionalists adhere to loyalties to one’s own race (or at least they used to, but now most are racial nihilists), ethnicity, culture, and traditions, that is loyalty to one’s nation. (A nation or nationality is a people who have a common genetic ancestry, culture, language, and history; who have common traditions and customs; and who are capable of forming or constituting an independent country.) Being universalists, cosmopolitans, globalists, imperialists, multiculturalists, and multiracialists, Rationalists believe in loyalty to humanity and abstract concepts.

Another important difference between Rationalists and Traditionalists is their view of capitalism. Rationalists promote managerial capitalism (as Sam Francis terms it). Managerial capitalism is a market system where managers of capital are not the owners of capital. Under managerial capitalism, the managers prefer a protected market instead of a free market for themselves. However, managers prefer a free market for their suppliers, workers, and independent contractors. This is the economic system of the United States, Western Europe, and much of the rest of the world — but usually without a free market for suppliers, workers, and contractors. Instead of relying on a free-market economy, this system relies on government-business partnerships, i.e., a coalition of managerial capitalism and the managerial state (a social justice-welfare state with a market economy) — thus, a form of democratic fascism. (This is what Rationalists commonly call democratic capitalism.) Perhaps, the most appropriate name for this system is “welfare capitalism.”

Traditionalists promote a decentralized free-market, free-enterprise system where the owners of capital manage their capital. Under this system, most people own their own businesses, farms, etc. and are self-employed. Factory workers are often the owners of the factories where they work. Large corporations are rare. The welfare state is nonexistent since aid provided by the welfare state is provided by private charities and local governments. Unlike Rationalists, Traditionalists do not believe in corporate welfare.

Another major disagreement between Rationalists and Traditionalists is their view of the founding of the United States. While Rationalists claim that the United States were founded as a propositional or creedal country, Traditionalists claim that they were founded as an ethnic (genetic) country.

The Rationalist view of the founding of the United States tends to fall into two groups. One group argues that America was founded on the principle of individualism and rational self-interest. It was founded with the modern commercial economy, managerial or democratic capitalism, in mind. Consequently, a homogenous citizenry is unnecessary because America is a creedal country. A person only needs to accept the creed. Thus, citizens are abstract, universal individuals instead of concrete people defined by race, class, religion, culture, language, etc.

Another group argues that America was founded on the concept of natural law and Judeo-Christian values (despite Judeo-Christian being an oxymoron). America was created on the proposition “that all men are created equal.” Thus, America was established for religious and virtuous people who sought justice, liberty, equality, and moderation. Consequently, adherence to this creed makes one an American and not race, ethnicity, class, religion, etc. Accordingly, both groups assert that the United States are a creedal country.

Traditionalists argue that the United States were founded on the principles of race and ethnicity, that is, America is a genetic nation. It was not founded as a creedal country. America was founded as a racially and culturally homogeneous country. The historical record supports this conclusion. Consequently, a multicultural and multiracial citizenry is anti-American.

Philosophically, Rationalists are in the same camp as liberals, progressives, socialists, and other left-wingers and libertarians. All are globalists and promote multiculturalism and multiracialism. All adhere to the notion that the United States are a creedal country although they disagree about what this creed is. None appreciate traditions. Therefore, Rationalists are not true conservatives.

Appendix. Traditional Southern Conservatives

A traditional Southern conservative adheres to kinship and ancestry and has an attachment to his ancestral land and community. He advocates States’ rights and stresses the importance of the Christian religion. Like John Calhoun, he believes that the US Constitution is a negative document; it greatly restricts the powers of the federal government. Further, he is a proponent of a community-oriented individualism that offers its members liberty and independent self-sufficiency within a hierarchical society regulated by tradition. Of great importance to a traditional Southern conservative are localism and coexisting with other communities and with other States in a federation.

Moreover, a traditional Southern conservative reveres the Confederacy and its symbols because it fought for the underlying principles of the US Constitution, which died with the defeat of the Confederacy. With the defeat of the Confederacy, the United States became an exceptional nation and a creedal country, whose creed is equality, democracy, and universal natural rights. The United States became a managerial state with managerial capitalism.

(On the other hand, neoconservatives and most establishment conservatives hold that America’s founding principles began with Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. But it will not be completed until the genocide of the last Southerner, whom they blame for nearly all of America’s problems.)

Reference

Gottfried, Paul, editor. The Vanishing Tradition: Perspectives on American Conservatism. Ithaca, New York: Northern Illinois University Press, 2020.

Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Coley Allen

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Theology Driving Understanding of the Bible

Theology Driving Understanding of the Bible

Thomas Allen

A person can understand the Bible in terms of his theology or can derive his theology from the Bible. Most fundamentalist and evangelical Christians argue that the Bible should be understood in its most literal sense. One exception is when a figure of speech, such as a metaphor or simile, is obviously being used; for example, the description of Jesus as a lamb in heaven in Revelation should not be understood literally. 

However, these Christians are not consistent in their literalist interpretation. When a literal reading contradicts their theology, they abandon literalism. Thus, they let their preconceived theology drive their understanding of the Bible. The following four examples illustrate this point.

Chapter 4 of Genesis describes Cain leaving his homeland and going to the land of Nod where he finds a wife and raises a family. Literalist fundamentalists and evangelists understand this chapter in light of their theology: the unity of man, all humans are descendants of Adam and Eve. These Christians argue that Cain married his sister, whom he apparently carried with him in his exile. However, nowhere does the Bible make this claim or even suggests it. A strictly literal reading of Genesis leads to believing that Cain discovered other people in Nod and married one of them. Nowhere does the Bible suggest that Adam and Eve had any children between Abel and Seth. Moreover, the events of Cain’s arriving in Nod, marrying, and beginning his family seem to have occurred before Seth’s birth. Consequently, Cain could not have married his sister. A strictly literal reading of the Bible leads to the conclusion that people inhabited Nod before Cain’s arrival, and these people were not descendants of Adam. Other events about Cain also support this conclusion, such as his fear of other people killing him, which led to God placing a mark on Cain to warn others not to kill him. 

Instead of understanding Genesis 12:3 literally, fundamentalists and evangelists spiritualize the verse while condemning people who spiritualize Biblical passages.  (Genesis 12:3 reads, “and I will bless them that bless thee [Abraham], and him that curseth thee will I curse: and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”) They have to spiritualize this verse because a literal reading conflicts with their premillennialist theology. A literal reading of this verse shows that the promise of blessing and cursing applies to those who bless and curse Abraham. It does not apply to those who bless or curse the country of Israel. Fundamentalists and evangelists spiritualize this verse and claim that it applies not only to Abraham but also to Israel today.

Like most Christian Zionists, literalist fundamentalists and evangelicals argue that today’s Israel is entitled to all the land from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates. This claim is based on Genesis 15:18, which reads, “In that day Jehovah made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.” (Some identify the river of Egypt with the Nile while others identify it with the stream that is now called the Wady el-‘Arish, whose mouth is near Arish.) According to these Christian Zionists, ancient Israel never fulfilled this promise. Therefore, the promise has not yet been fulfilled; it lies in the future. However, Joshua disagrees with these Christian Zionists. According to Joshua 21:43-45, “So Jehovah gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers; and they possessed it, and dwelt therein. . . . There failed not aught of any good thing which Jehovah had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass.” Thus, the promise made in Genesis 15:18 occurred in the time of Joshua. Consequently, literalist fundamentalists and evangelicals like most Christian Zionists ignore Joshua for the sake of their premillennialist theology.

Like almost all Christians, these literalist fundamentalists and evangelicals are Trinitarians. They understand the New Testament in the light of the Trinitarian creeds developed in the early centuries of Christianity and elaborated on since then although they disagree on what the Trinity really is. Thus, they let their theology drive their understanding of the Bible.  However, if they read the New Testament literally with an open, unbiased mind, they probably would not arrive at the orthodox Trinity dogma. Most likely, they would arrive at a doctrine similar to what the Arians espoused, which was similar to the subordination doctrine (the Son had a beginning and was subordinate to the Father) that was orthodoxy in the second and third centuries. Or, perhaps, they would arrive at an adoption doctrine (God the Father adopted Jesus the man to be His Son). These two require much less mental gymnastics than does the Trinity doctrine to explain away contradicting passages.

Many Christians start with their preconceived theology and proceed to understand the Bible in light of their preconceived theology. Only a few let the Bible determine their theology. Nevertheless, nearly all Christians of the former group will claim that they derived their theology from the Bible.

Copyright © 2021 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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