Gottfried and Equality

Gottfried and Equality

Thomas Allen

In “Flawed Reasoning on CRT,” Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, September 2021, page 9, Paul Gottfried discusses equality. This article is somewhat confusing —at least to me. At times, he writes as though he favors equality of opportunity while at other times he seems to believe that equality of opportunity is unachievable because of genetics. Thus, to seek to achieve equality of opportunity leads to a loss of liberty. (He is ambivalent about genetics. Most of the time he appears to hold that genetics are irrelevant — not so much in this article as in others.) Moreover, he seems obsessed with equality but writes that people should not be obsessed with it.

Gottfried writes, “In America we are committed to the proposition that ‘all men are created equal’ [Lincoln’s assertion].” He continues, “America stands for equality of opportunity [the neoconservative position], not equality of results [the progressive position]. . . .” Since he is not a fan of Lincoln and disagrees with many of the neoconservatives’ positions, that he would support their positions on equality seems strange. His opposition to equality of results is in keeping with his political philosophy.

Yet, he opposes the obsession with equality and making it the overriding goal of the country. He prefers “a government under the law providing its citizens with ordered liberty.”

According to him, until the country “achieves a more level playing field,” equality of results is a more correct answer than equality of opportunity. However, he fails or refuses to recognize the importance of genetics. Genetics prevents a level playing field.

Equality of opportunity is more of a chimera than equality of results or equity as it is now commonly called. Does a five-foot, fat, klutz have the same opportunity of becoming a professional basketball center as does a seven-foot, agile, athlete? Does a dimwit have the same opportunity of becoming a doctor or engineer with a Ph.D. as does a genius? The answer to both questions is “no” although proponents of equality of opportunity would have to argue otherwise. For the klutz, their solution is more training though training will not overcome his genetically caused height disadvantage. For the dimwit, their solution is more education although education will not overcome his genetically caused low IQ. 

However, the proponents of equality of results can give the illusion of equality by forcing a professional basketball team to use the klutz as its starting center. Also, they can force a company to hire the dimwit as an engineer or doctor instead of the genius. Moreover, they can force the company to use the work of the dimwit engineer or doctor.

Genetics guarantees that some will have an advantage over others at the starting gate. At conception, genetics predestine some people to be tall or geniuses and others to be short or dimwits; most fall in between. Environment decides how people will use their physical and mental abilities or to compensate for their lack of these abilities. Even then, genetics influence the how.

Only despotism can retard and suppress the more gifted and advance and raise the less gifted. But even here genetics will dominate. Genetics give some people the advantage of becoming a despot. Thus, genetics along with opportunity will be a major factor in deciding who will be the despot. 

Where a despot exists, equality cannot exist. Of necessity, despotism divides society into two classes: the ruler and the ruled. Only a few have the opportunity of being the despot; thus, equality of opportunity does not exist. Moreover, equality of results cannot exist in a despotism since the ruler has the power and the ruled are his slaves, which is a highly unequal result.

People should learn to live with the hand that Deity, fate, or nature dealt them and cease being obsessed with equality — be it equality of opportunity or equality of results. Their lives would be much happier.

An obsession with equality leads to envy, and envy leads to an obsession with equality. Envy is highly destructive and results in misery. Consequently, God commands people not to envy.

Copyright © 2021 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Location of Eden

Location of Eden

Thomas Allen

8 And Jehovah God planted a garden eastward, in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. . . . 10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became four heads. 11 The name of the first is Pishon: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; 12 and the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. 13 And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Cush. 14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth in front of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. (Genesis, Chapter 2)

Where is Eden located? Several locations have been suggested. They include Palestine, Syria, Armenia, Mongolia, Kashmir, Australia, Mesopotamia, and the North Pole.

Havilah is noted for its gold and gemstones. Because it is noted for its high-quality gold, Havilah is often associated with India or Arabia. If it is in India, the Pishon is the Indus. If Havilah is Arabia, then the Pishon is the sea around the Arabian peninsula.

Many locate Cush in either Ethiopia or Central Asia. Thus, the Gihon is either the Nile (the Ethiopian location) or the Oxus, the Amu Darya (the Central Asian location).

According to the information given in Genesis 2:10-14, one river came out of Eden and divided into four. Because the Euphrates is mentioned as one of these rivers, most people assume that Eden was in Mesopotamia. Under this theory, the Tigris is the Hiddekel. There is much dispute about the two rivers corresponding to Pishon and Gihon. 

Upper Mesopotamia is perhaps the most popular location of Eden. According to proponents of this location, the Euphrates is the Euphrates of Mesopotamia and the Hiddekel is the Tigris. The identity of the Pishon and Gihon are uncertain. Some identify these two rivers with canals between the Euphrates and Tigris. Also, the Karun and Karkheh rivers have been identified as the other two rivers. Others identify them with various small rivers. 

Another popular location for Eden is the Armenian highlands at the headwaters of the Euphrates and Tigris. According to this theory, the Pishon is either the Phasis (Rioni) of Georgia or the Kura, a large tributary of the Araxes (Aras). The Gihon is identified as the Araxes. (For problems with this location, see Davis.)

Calvin and others have suggested that Eden was in the area where the Euphrates and Tigris empty into the Persian Gulf. Here, the two rivers come together and then divide into several mouths. Thus, the Pallakopas canal becomes the Pishon, and the Gihon corresponds with the Kahana or Guhana canal near Babylon. A problem with this theory is that the rivers come together instead of dividing.

Closely related to Calvin’s proposed location is that Eden is located at the head of the Persian Gulf. According to this theory, the four rivers are the Euphrates, Tigris, Kerkha, and Karun. A problem with this theory is that the rivers flow toward Eden instead of away from it.

At least, the two theories that place Eden near the mouths of the Euphrates and Tigris place Eden east of the writer of Genesis. However, they fail to satisfy the description of Havilah.

According to the Scriptures, the Adamic race originated in Eden. Most people erroneously place Eden in the Middle East. The location of Eden as described in Genesis 2:8, 10-14 places it in Central Asia. 

“And Jehovah God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put man [Adam] whom he had formed.” (Genesis 2:8) The garden in Eden was eastward or “in the east” (Moffatt’s translation) or “to the far east” (Ferrar Fenton’s translation). If Moses were the author of Genesis as the fundamentalists claim, then he, being a highly educated man, would have been knowledgeable of the Mesopotamian region. Would not he have said that Eden was in the land of Shinar or Mesopotamia if that is where it was? In Genesis 10:10, 11:2, 14:1, and 24:10, he calls this region Shinar or Mesopotamia. Moses identified Eden as being in the east because it was east of the area which he knew.

If various people who lived long after Moses wrote Genesis as many modernists and liberal theologians claim, then these authors certainly would have been familiar with the Mesopotamian region and would have referred to it by name rather than by a vague description of where Eden was located.

Also, Sargon's Chronicle identifies Eden as east of Mesopotamia. Thus, the inhabitants of Mesopotamia knew that they did not live where Eden was. Saint Ephraem’s Hymns to the True Paradise and Cosmas Indicopleusters’s Christian Topography placed Eden at the western edge of the world’s highest mountains. Hence, it was in the region of the Himalayan and adjacent mountains—although they may have thought of these mountains as near the North Pole. They certainly did not place it in Mesopotamia.

The geography of Mesopotamia does not fit the description of Eden given in Genesis. Only two major rivers are in Mesopotamia: the Euphrates and Tigris. They merge rather than divide. Eden must be found elsewhere.

“Euphrates” in Hebrew is perath and means “a river of the east” (Strongs O.T. #6578). For centuries the “Pishon” has been identified with the Indus or Ganges Rivers in India. In the ancient records, Havilah was equivalent to India. Because the Gihon was said to “compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia,” some Biblical scholars identify the Gihon with the Nile. The word “cush” originates in northern India. Here the Hindu Cush mountains still bear that name. The Hiddekel is often identified as the Tigris. If the Tigris were also called the Hiddekel, it, like the Euphrates, was named for the original river in Eden. Probably this is why Genesis 2:14 refers to it as the river that flows “toward the east of Assyria.” This modifier would prevent confusing it with the river of the same name that flows within Assyria. Except for the Indus River, the rivers commonly thought of as flowing out of Eden do not fit the Biblical description of these rivers.

One place does resemble the description of Eden given in the Bible. That place is the Pamir Plateau in Central Asia between the Hindu Cush on the south and the Tien Shan mountains on the north. Four great rivers flow from this plateau. These are the Indus, Jaxartes (Syr Darya), Oxus (Amu Darya, also called  Gihon), and Tarim. Corresponding to the Pishon is the Kumar (or Chitral) branch of the Indus. The Jaxartes is the original Euphrates. The Tarim (that is its northern branch, the Kashgar river) flows to the east and is probably the Hiddekel. Most likely, the country of Havilah corresponds to the country of Darada toward Chachmises, which is noted for its riches. Thus, the Pishon is the Kumar-Indus; the Gihon is the Oxus;  the Hiddekel is the Kashgar-Tarim; the Euphrates is the Jaraxrtes.

The Pamir Plateau is different from what it was ten thousand years ago. A catastrophe has altered it. Then the plateau was lower and the climate much milder. Today the Pamir Plateau is uninhabited. It covers an area of about 180 by 180 miles and rises 15,000 feet above sea level. Too inhospitable to be inhabited, it is a blank and mysterious place. It is now the “roof of the world.”

The Pamir Plateau matches the geographical description of Eden given in Genesis. It is the land in the east, and it has four great rivers flowing out of it.

However, if the people who claim that the Noachian Flood was global and nearly all, if not all, of the fossil-bearing sedimentary rock formations resulted from the Flood, then trying to locate a place from before the Flood with today’s geography is futile. Today’s geography would have no resemblance to pre-Flood geography. Consequently, the above discussion about the location of Eden is meaningless. 

References

Allen, Thomas Coley. Adam to Abraham: The Early History of Man. Franklinton, North Carolina: TC Allen Company, 1998.

Davis, John D. The Westminster Dictionary of the Bible. Revised by Henry Snyder Gehman. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: 1944.

Douglas, J.D. et al., editors. The New Bible Dictionary. Grand Rapids: Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1962. 

Haberman, Frederick. Tracing Our White Ancestors (White Roots). Second edition.  Phoenix, Arizona: America's Promise Lord's Covenant Church, 1962, reprinted 1979.

Jacobus, Melanchthon W., Edward E. Norse, and Andrew C. Zenos, editors. A New Standard Bible Dictionary. New York, New York: Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1926.

Weisman, Charles A. The Origin of Race and Civilization as Studied and Verified from Science, History, and the Holy Scriptures. Third edition. Burnsville, Minnesota: Weisman Publications, 1990.

Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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More Political Thoughts

More Political Thoughts

Thomas Allen

Discussed below are official papers, socialism and democracy, the wrong question, and a credibility test.

Official Papers

Our ancestors who fought the National Socialists (Nazis) and the Fascists in World War II would be proud of what has happened to the United States. They fought the National Socialists and Fascists to rid the world of their despotism and tyranny. Thus, they would be overwhelmed with the joy of knowing that people need officially governmentally issued papers called Read ID to travel within the United States — as the National Socialists and Fascists required official papers to travel. So, why did our ancestors fight the National Socialists and Fascists?

In other words, propagandists inculcate us with the notion that their ancestors fought the National Socialists and Fascists to keep us free. They did such a great job of keeping us free that we are now free to be required to have governmentally issued papers, Real Id, to travel — just as the people in National Socialist Germany and Fascist Italy needed official papers to travel. So much for freedom.

President Bush said that the terrorists attacked the United States because they hated our freedom. Then, he proceeded to suppress the few remaining freedoms that Americans had. President Obama extended Bush’s police state of suppressing freedom, and President Trump did nothing to end and reverse this police state. Since Americans have lost their freedoms, the terrorists have won. So, why are the United States still fighting a war that has been lost? Why not admit defeat and bring the troops home and repeal all the police state and antiterrorist laws?

Socialism and Democracy

Socialism is economic democracy. Democracy is political socialism. Under democracy, each person, in theory, has an equal say in society’s political affairs.  Under socialism, each person, in theory, has an equal say in society’s economic affairs. In both socialism and democracy, each person has an equal say.

Wrong Question

Paul Harvey said, “They have gun control in Cuba. They have universal health care in Cuba. So why do they want to come here?” This is a good question, but it is the wrong question.

The question should be: Why are not progressives, liberals, and socialists moving to Cuba? Cuba is already offering what they want: gun control, universal healthcare, and much more. Certainly, Cuba would welcome them with open arms — especially if they bring their wealth with them.

The reason that progressives, liberals, and socialists do not move to Cuba is that they are Puritans. They have seen the light and are compelled to force their utopia on everyone — especially on those who know that their utopia is really a dystopia.

Credibility Test

A three-step test can be given to find out if a person has credibility. (1) Does he believe or claim to believe the official governmental conspiracy theory of 9-11? (2) Does he believe or claim to believe that the Democrats and their supporters, promoters, and owners did not steal the 2020-presidential election? (3) Does he believe or claim to believe the official explanation of the Kennedy assassination? If he answers one or more of these questions “yes,” then he has no credibility.

Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Charlotte-Mecklenburg School Integration

Charlotte-Mecklenburg School Integration

Thomas Allen

The desegregation-integration of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system is a good example of the greed of the New South Southerner and the hypocrisy of the Northerner. Their attitude toward integration well illustrates this greed and hypocrisy. (For those who do not know the geography of North Carolina, Charlotte is the largest city in North Carolina and the county seat of Mecklenburg County. Mecklenburg County had one school system that included the city of Charlotte.)

In the 1960s, Charlotte-Mecklenburg had desegregated schools yet by 1968 only 28 percent of Blacks attended majority-White schools, which was more race-mixing than most other large cities had achieved. Nevertheless, the integrationists were not satisfied.

In 1971, three years after the Supreme Court legalized forced busing to achieve substantial integration, Judge James McMillan imposed forced busing on Charlotte-Mecklenburg to achieve the equal distribution of Black and White students. His ruling, which the Supreme Court supported, initially received some protests. Parents who lived in the suburbs objected to busing. They accepted desegregation, which required assigning students to schools without considering race. However, they opposed integration, which required assigning students to schools based on race. Although he did nothing to alleviate forced busing to achieve racial balance, President Nixon endorsed their opposition. Even the Supreme Court seemed to agree with the protesters in a 1974 ruling and especially after 1990.

Nevertheless, community leaders decided not to oppose integration because they feared opposition would stifle Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s economy. Consequently, they supported integration. Thus, they placed wealth above everything else. If they placated the integrationists, especially the Northern integrationists, most of whom wanted integration in the South but not in the North, the result would be an economic boom. Therefore, they not only promoted the mild climate, low taxes, and low cost of living in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, they also promoted its progressive racial policies.

Although Whites preferred neighborhood schools, they surrendered to force busing to achieve racially balanced schools. Naively, the liberal leaders sought to prove that racially balanced integrated schools could achieve a high-quality education, which they never have. (Integrated schools lead to lower educational standards.) For the liberal leaders of Charlotte, integration was a source of great pride.

When President Reagan opposed taking children out of neighborhood schools and using them as pawns in a social experiment, the Charlotte Observer objected. It declared that the integration of Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools was Charlotte’s greatest achievement. Integration of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools led to a strong, growing economy.

Whether cause or coincidence, growth did accompany school integration. Between 1970 and 1997, Charlotte’s population grew more than 70 percent, the second greatest rate among American cities with a population greater than 500,000. Moreover, Charlotte became a major banking city.

A major cause of the integrationists’ praise for Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s integrated school system was that the school system was countrywide. Consequently, Whites could not avoid integration by fleeing to the suburbs as they did in the North. Thus, Charlotte-Mecklenburg was an excellent example of the success of court-ordered forced busing — from the integrationist perspective.

With the economic growth came the Northern migrant. These Northern Whites settled in predominantly White communities. (Northerners and White leaders may preach integration, but most prefer not to live in integrated communities.) As a result of Whites living in predominantly White communities, Blacks became disproportionally concentrated in Charlotte.

As White moved out of Charlotte, students, both Black and White, spent more time on buses so that racial balance could be achieved. Nevertheless, school authorities refused to build new schools in predominantly White communities. Busing to achieve integration led to a growth in private schools. By 1997, about 25 percent of White students in Charlotte-Mecklenburg attended private schools, which was 10 times the number in 1970, just before forced busing began, and which was more than 10 times the national average. 

Not only was busing causing Whites to flee public schools, so was the decline in the quality of education in public schools. The poor behavior of Blacks was another cause for leaving public schools.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s progressive policies had brought many new businesses and people to the county. Many of these newcomers were from the North. Most Northerners had avoided integrated schools by moving to suburbs that had their own school systems. This was not an option in Charlotte-Mecklenburg because the county had one school system that covered the whole county including Charlotte. When Northerners came to Charlotte-Mecklenburg, they demanded schools like the ones that they had left behind. They wanted to send their children to predominately White schools. They did not want to sacrifice quality education on the altar of integration. Although Yankees did not mind and generally favored forced busing Southerners to Black neighborhoods to achieve racial balance, they were not going to allow their children to be bussed to Black neighborhoods.

By 1990, Charlotte-Mecklenburg began to realize that forced integration was making Charlotte-Mecklenburg less attractive to new businesses. That is, forced integration was hurting the recruitment of new businesses.  Consequently, business leaders, whose god is wealth, abandoned force busing, which previously they had promoted.

Bowing to these business leaders, the school board sharply reduced forced busing in 1992. To achieve integration, the school board instituted magnet programs. However, because many magnet schools were in Black neighborhoods, many Blacks were bused elsewhere to make space for White students. To maintain integration, the school board resorted to a quota system to ensure an adequate number of Black students in the magnet schools. Still, many Blacks did not want to attend magnate schools. Consequently, spaces reserved for Blacks remained empty while Whites remained on waiting lists.

Apparently, the school board thought magnate schools, many of which were in Black neighborhoods, would make Black neighborhoods palatable to Whites. Moreover, the school board seemed to believe that White parents would voluntarily send their children halfway across the county to attend a magnet school. Nevertheless, the magnet programs did succeed in placating many Whites.

The quota system led to a lawsuit in 1997. A White plaintiff claimed that the quota system amounted to racial discrimination. Being dominated by integrationists,  the school board objected. It declared that desegregation of its schools had not been achieved. After 30 years of trying, it had failed to desegregate its schools. One of its chief arguments that desegregation had not been overcome was the racial gap in academic achievement between Blacks and Whites.

Judge Robert Potter ruled against the school board in favor of the plaintiff. He declared that Charlotte-Mecklenburg had eliminated the last vestige of past discrimination and that it had complied in good faith with the federal court desegregation orders. Thus, he prohibited the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board from assigning students to schools based on race and from allocating educational opportunities through race-based lotteries, preferences, and set-asides.

After this court ruling, most Whites abandoned schools in predominately Black neighborhoods, and White enrollment in the suburbs soared. By 2007, more than half the Charlotte-Mecklenburg elementary schools were either predominantly (90 percent) White or predominately Black. Being relieved of having to achieve racial balances, the school board could now focus on improving the quality of education for both Whites and Blacks. The shift of resources from busing to achieve a racial balance to improving the quality of education improved the overall academics of Blacks.

When the federal court ordered Charlotte-Mecklenburg to implement integration using forced busing, the leaders of Charlotte-Mecklenburg adopted forced busing with fervent enthusiasm. Forced busing became their pride about which they boasted. They believed that integration would lead to economic growth, which did occur. Along with economic growth came the Northern transplant. These Northerners cared little about integration for themselves. Integration was solely for Southerners. These Northerners ardently opposed forced busing to achieve integration when it involved their children. Eventually, Northerners pressured the Charlotte-Mecklenburg leaders to kill their pride, forced busing. Thus, ended forced busing to achieve racial integration in Charlotte-Mecklenburg.

Reference

Wolters, Raymond. Race and Education, 1954-2007. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2008.

Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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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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