rpt: bobcesca.com/blog-archives/2009/02/this_is_100_per.html

rpt: I don’t agree re this interpretation of the tithe, but it doesn’t matter because the Mosaic law was fulfilled, and the 10% tithe (to God for the support of the Levites, not the state as a tax) is no longer required. Instead the New Covenant requires 100%, i.e. Ananias and Saphpira and parable of the “rich young ruler”. This is rarely discussed, as it indicates an inherent contradiction between Christianity and modern capitalism. Marx, of course, was not a Christian but rather an occultist.

BS!

Mat 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
Mat 5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Mat 5:19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Is heaven and earth passed away?

no.

Has all prophecy been fulfilled?

no.

501-c3 psuedo-christians are hypocrites and frauds.

Aman: Caucasoid remains pre date those of Indian descent discovered here in modern day America.

Incidentally, if you are referring to Kennewick Man, this is wrong. DNA analysis of the skeletal remains confirmed what anyone could have guessed: the man was of Asian descent (probably most closely related to the inhabitants of Northeast Asia where the first humans would have crossed to the Aleutian islands and mainland Alaska), not Caucasoid.

That’s a good point. I’m not sure if everyone today is culpable, as that would require some knowledge that the land was originally stolen. Nonetheless, stolen land is stolen land, and so therefore most land in the US would have a cloud over its title if it can be established that it was stolen from the natives. I wouldn’t be surprised if this has been argued in court at some point.

I offer no solutions, but merely raise the issue. As you can see, merely raising the issue offends some people, so offering a solution is bound to raise a lot of contention. If we as a country ever are called to account for the atrocities and broken treaties, we wouldn’t have enough money to make equity.

Randy: Xliberal: “Were you sincere in that question, you would return to a country from which your ancestors came. My ancestors came from Poland around 1900.They didn’t steal any land, and in fact paid full market value for all land they have bought since then.I don’t see how your question changes anything. The Pilgrim’s didn’t pay anybody for their land.After they took it, they found out the value of property rights — that’s the point of this thread.I’m merely pointing out that it’s great that the Pilgrim’s found such rights important, and it’s too bad that they didn’t treat the natives equally well.This is beyond dispute, but apparently merely pointing out this truth makes some people rather uncomfortable.

The point is that if the Pilgrims stole the land, and by extension all land was stolen from the Indians, then your ancestors bought stolen property, which makes them just as culpable. Stolen property remains stolen property. If your parents inherited stolen property from your grandparents, they inherited stolen property. And so on.

So once again, we find that it’s okay to steal from thieves. Worse, if your ancestors stole, it’s okay to steal from you. Therefore, it should be okay for someone to steal my land, since our ancestors stole land, right?

I don’t recall the US government ever paying natives for their land, although I might be wrong about that. But it certainly wasn’t common. In fact, throughout the 19th century, we forceably relocated many indian tribes. Or don’t you recall the Trail of Tears under the Jackson Administration?

But I guess that’s all okay. After all, they didn’t live up to their image of the ‘noble savage,’ so it’s okay to take any land you come across, and shove off the natives, with arms if necessary, and kill the ones you don’t like.

Sheesh. It’s amazing the mental gyrations people go with to justify illegal or immoral behavior. Aman, you made a good stab at it, though.

My ancestors came from Poland around 1900. They didn’t steal any land, and in fact paid full market value for all land they have bought since then. I don’t see how your question changes anything.

The Pilgrim’s didn’t pay anybody for their land. After they took it, they found out the value of property rights — that’s the point of this thread. I’m merely pointing out that it’s great that the Pilgrim’s found such rights important, and it’s too bad that they didn’t treat the natives equally well. This is beyond dispute, but apparently merely pointing out this truth makes some people rather uncomfortable.

The only way to call European expansion in the America’s “theft” is to arbitrarily start “ownership” with the last people to have sometimes walked on a certain piece of dirt once maybe.

Given the decline of the major North American Indian cultures, particularly the Cherokee (not necessarily due to imported disease, latest science has it possibly an effect of the Little Ice Age) prior to the European arrivals in North America (vice Central), it would be more accurate to say that the land (other than actual fixed village sites where applicable) was there for the taking, although some people had become used to using it without formally declaring ownership.

So rather than “steal”, consider the Europeans the first people to claim and enforce the squatter’s rights the locals had been enjoying previously.

squggty: There was good reason that established Indian towns were built like forts.

What kind of argument is this? Nearly every Medieval town or city of any significance between Beijing and London was surrounded by a wall with watchtowers and holes you could fire arrows through at invaders. If the fortification of towns shows how uncivilized the native Americans were, what does it say about the people of Europe and Asia?

Thanksgiving on the Net: Roast Bull with Cranberry Sauce

You’ll note that Prof. Bangs doesn’t refute “The Libertarian’s First Thanksgiving” — but does sneer at it, and then clarifies the extent to which the 1623 reallocations of property rights are similar to (and different from) private property, viz.:

True history? Does it make any difference? As Kamensky says, “It’s true to its purposes.”

For the purposes of historical accuracy, nevertheless, I think it’s worth mentioning that the Pilgrims’ initial system of working the land by changing field assignments each year had nothing at all to do with socialism – it was the consequence of an early and unrestrained form of capitalism whereby the colony, its products, and the colonists’ productive labor were absolutely and entirely mortgaged to the London investors, whose loans had to be paid off before any of the Pilgrim colonists could own free-hold property. The colony as a whole and its colonists were indentured. Their contract is now lost; probably it was among the missing first 338 pages of William Bradford’s letter-book. The shift away from rotating field assignments did not result in private property, just a modification of the organization of the indentured labor. Private real property came for these colonists in 1627 when a small group among the colonists – the “Purchasers” – bought the debt and the responsibility to pay it off. A temporary monopoly on the fur trade was reserved to them as compensation for their higher personal responsibility and financial exposure.

The key point is that the incentives to work hard, and the ability to reap the fruits of one’s own labor (rather than to share in everyone’s) did NOT show up before 1623. (Full privatization, with property rights and debt, apparently occurred around 1627.) Given how thoroughly the rest of the “roast bull” is debunked, the Libertarian story looks downright reasonable by comparison.

I claim that 1623 was the first “real” Thanksgiving. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Randy: So it’s okay to steal from a thief? Even if all your points are true, how does that justify the Pilgrim’s taking the land? Would you be okay if the Indians just forced the Pilgrim’s off the land?

Were you sincere in that question, you would return to a country from which your ancestors came.

So it’s okay to steal from a thief? Even if all your points are true, how does that justify the Pilgrim’s taking the land? Would you be okay if the Indians just forced the Pilgrim’s off the land?

“Please try to understand that people throughout history have not had the security in their lives that you are blessed with today (and which you probably have no part in achieving or maintaining).”

Please try to explain how I’ve had no part in achieving or maintaining the security in our lives, or else apologize. Thanks.

I *can* tell you that not only have I worked for a long period of time as a prosecutor in a DA’s office, I was the founding editor of the CEELI newsletter. CEELI was an project put together by the ABA Section of International Law and Practice after the Berlin wall fell. We offered legal advice for free to all the former communist countries to help them write their constitutions, establish an independent judiciary, and help the understand the importance of the rule of law. Once the constitutions were in place, we then help them draft implementing laws, and then followed through on that to make sure the legal system was working properly. I hosted several delegations of foriegn jurists in my house. I could go on, but you get the point. So please save your snark for another person that you disagree with, okay?

Anyway, land ownership is treated very conservatively, as the lands in question become more valuable for other than resource development they will be privatized as many non-financially-viable, non-resource bearing lands have been.

The idea is that eventually the Permanent Fund will, through the magic of compounding interest and wise investment, grow large enough that state government, limited by the Constitution, can “live off” of dividend income alone.

Matthew Carberry: That may be a kind of socialism, but it isn’t any kind of statist authoritarianism.

Exactly. Proving that socialism and authoritarianism aren’t inextricably intertwined.

We the owners (shareholders) of the resources on state-owned lands elect a board of directors (Governor and Legislature) to manage those assets with our input. They negotiate and lease, to private companies, contractual access to the resources. Those private companies then do the work (with associated capital investment and risk) of developing and extracting those resources, paying a portion of their profit to the state as part of the lease contract.

The receipts from these leases and taxes pay for the cost of running the corporation of the state, the excess is then invested by a board appointed, again with shareholder involvement, by the overall BofD (Gov, and Leg.) to manage an investment portfolio, the Alaska Permanent Fund. A percentage of the interest from that portfolio (after inflation proofing and other costs) is then returned to the shareholders of the corporation (the citizenry) in the form of dividend checks every year.

That may be a kind of socialism, but it isn’t any kind of statist authoritarianism.

Randy: I’m very glad that the early Pilgrims learned the value of property rights.Just after they stole the property from the Indians.Perhaps if they truly valued property, they would have paid the market value?Just a thought.AS for the tea baggers, one need only google a bit to find that many people were happy to mail tea bags to Washingtons, such as here or here.One can logically conclude that if tea bags are entered into the political conversation, then one might be labeled a tea bagger.The folks who want to protest Washington could just as easily argued to mail loose leaf tea (my preference in drinking anyway), or suggested something like orange pekoe tea, or jasmine tea, and the ‘tea bag’ reference would have been obviated without diluting the message.The metaphor could have been expanded to bring in other interests: Herbal teas would attract a ‘new age’ voting bloc, whereas ‘afternoon tea’ would have attracted anglophiles and gay men.

You need to try to understand that 400 years ago the World operated (and largely still does) where people with power pushed otheres aside. ALL those Indians themselves had previously pushed other tribes out of that land long before the ‘evil whiteman’ ever arrived. Read the rest of the real story where the Indian tribe that befriended the Pilgrims itself was under threat from other tribes and was seeking an alliance with the newcomers who had valuable trade resources and military strength.

Consider how the English eventually treated Indians and compare it to how they treated the Irish (the soldiers at Jamestown had recently come from deployment in Ireland where they treaeted the people there much the same way).

The Indians had plenty of murderous wars amongst themselves and the names of all the destroyed tribes were never written down and are long forgotten.
There was good reason that established Indian towns were built like forts.

What was the most popular and sought after trade item for the Indians ?? Guns. Guns to be used to fight other Indians.

Please try to understand that people throughout history have not had the security in their lives that you are blessed with today (and which you probably have no part in achieving or maintaining).

Wayne: Of course, the real irony of this history is the reason the Pilgrims initially instituted communal ownership.The investors backing the enterprise were concerned that the colonists would shirk their obligation to work on behalf of the investors if the colonists had their own property. In other words, the capitalists funding the expedition forced the colonists to give up private property rights as a condition of the investment.There is more than one lesson in this story, and to quote the immortal Inigo Montoya “I do not think it means what you think it means.”

If that was true then the leadership could not of changed the system to the privatization. Can you show proof that any such ‘investment agreement’ like that even existed?? From what I recall they were self funded and really a bunch of refugees who left Europe to get away from that kind of and religious limitations.

Some Guy: Read the history of communisim in Russia, China, and any other place you can think of.You will read about massive famines and massive starvation.Communism and famine go hand in hand.

The Plymouth colony settlers are now deemed pre-Marx communists?

Meanwhile, Relic a) offered no counter-argument but simply listed what’s at my tea parties page, and b) the idea that the Buffalo Tea Party – promoted by Instapundit et al – was not a “real” tea party is absurd. The picture at my page is at flickr.com/photos/mattmargolis/3392511145/in/set-72157616038389908/ and the person who took it use to run BlogsForBush.com, now BlogsForVictory or whatever. That shows another component of the tea parties mindset: they’re willing to lie and mislead if they think it will help them.

AS for the tea baggers, one need only google a bit to find that many people were happy to mail tea bags to Washingtons, such as here or here.

One can logically conclude that if tea bags are entered into the political conversation, then one might be labeled a tea bagger. The folks who want to protest Washington could just as easily argued to mail loose leaf tea (my preference in drinking anyway), or suggested something like orange pekoe tea, or jasmine tea, and the ‘tea bag’ reference would have been obviated without diluting the message. The metaphor could have been expanded to bring in other interests: Herbal teas would attract a ‘new age’ voting bloc, whereas ‘afternoon tea’ would have attracted anglophiles and gay men.

I would be curious to hear **libertarians’** views on the collective ownership of natural resources in Alaska and the resulting redistribution of the wealth equally among all Alaskans that Palin seems to champion as good… is that socialism?

Palin is a conservative, not a libertarian. I still don’t have a good fix on how libertarian she might be. In the case of Alaska, if you have the state taking ownership of previously unowned resources, and then perhaps using income from those resources to support its activities without further taxation, the result might still not be ok to the strictest libertarians (anarcho-capitalists) but for many (some? one?) of us with very strong libertarian leanings it does allow for the possibility of a fairly minimal state and minimal coercion. I’m inclined to agree (or at least accept for the time being) that socialized defense may be necessary to preserve maximal liberty. And maybe socialized a few other things too, like establishing roads or at least rights of way. When it comes to wholesale robbery and coercive ponzi schemes like Social Security, Medicare, and the travesty Congress is poised to dump on us, we are way, way beyond the pale in my opinion.

Pumpkin or Pecan?

The only proper answer to this is “yes, please”. Note the British style — I’m trying to make them feel included in Thanksgiving.

Capitalism refers to the distribution of resources through markets, and socialism refers to the distribution of resources through governmental forces.
No, you can’t have both. One interferes with the other,

On the contrary, capitalism cannot exist without socialism!

As I said above, the terms are extremely broad in their usage. But if you want to be precise about it you’ll have to admit that as soon as you have taxation (commonly held wealth) then you have socialism. And as it happens, you can’t have a market economy without a State strong enough to enforce contracts. But this is such a remedial discussion!

“You can’t have both”!

Rather, you can’t see the evidence of modern life right in front of your nose.

What would have been your reaction if someone in the Bush Administration had said something like the following: “In 1927 nearly everyone in Germany thought that Adolf Hitler had a snowflake’s chance in Hell of becoming the leader of Germany. Hitler never gave up hope, and six years later became Chancellor. Hitler is one of my favorite philosophers for his never-say-die spirit.”

jab: The implication is clear though that SOME (by no means all) of the right wing on this site see no problem with cheap shots like “Obama pals around with terrorists” or is a Mao-loving Communist, or as I saw on theo’s website, being sure to refer to Obama as B. Hussein (get it… he’s like Sadam!)

I am saying that President Obama is comfortable with having someone in the White House who thinks that Mao is one of her “favorite philosophers.” (The test of Mao as a philosopher is his application of his philosophy.)
You may not like to be reminded of it,but Obama did pal around with Bill Ayers, a self-admitted terrorist and advocate of dictatorship of the proletariat. Not to mention Bernadine. I am unable to understand why it is a “cheap shot” to point out the truth.

Here are some “cheap shots” where the President is referred to as Barack Hussein Obama. Granted, it’s not exactly the same as “B Hussein”, but it still uses the middle name.

1)”Much has been made of the fact that an African-American with the name Barack Hussein Obama could be elected President.
2) “But who would have thought only a few years ago that a young man named Barack Hussein Obama could be elected to the most powerful job on earth.”

The first speaker was President Obama. The second speaker was Farouk Shami , candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for Governor of Texas. So it is kosher for Democrats to use the President’s middle name, but not kosher for Republicans to do so?

Obama is comfortable with people who are communists or who think that commies are cool. such as Bill and Bernie and Anita and Van. Ok, Anita thinks only Mao is cool. That makes ME uncomfortable, perhaps because I grew up with many refugees from Nazism and Communism. Billy and Bernie drank the Kood-Aid down to the last drop. Anita Dunn is like those who walked around US campuses with Mao’s Little Red Book, thought Mao was cool,or at least is was cool to carry around his book, but most likely had spent all of two minutes reading it. Only an ignorant fool could think like Anita Dunn did, that Mao was cool. I have a problem with an ignorant fool working in the White House. Sorry Anita, commies ain’t cool.

But, apparently, I’m the one running around insulting people’s intelligence.

I mean, you’re down to arguing that 20 months is not “almost two years,” then you complain that I’m insulting your intelligence.

Once you’ve hit the bottom of the barrel in your criticisms of me, turn it over and start digging. Can’t be worse than the route you’ve taken now, right?

theobromophile: TThat a handful among them do not mind a vulgar sexual slur (or, as per Leo’s incredibly irrational reasoning, use tea bags, which contain tea, as a symbol and therefore are fine with being associated with a sexual practise) does not mean that the millions of people who are involved or support the movement should be demeaned this way.

You’re arguing witha straw Leo. This one wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving.

geokstr: Exactly. For the first time since I’ve been coming here, I totally agree with you (almost).

In the spirit of Mark Field’s comment I’m pretending your response ended there, and didn’t go on to retract your agreement with everything I said that contradicts your Manichean world view.

Happy Thanksgiving.

This isn’t a case of me being some horrible, perpetually offensive commenter who regularly makes everyone’s lives miserable with her snark; this is a situation in which you are just looking for anything to justify your actions. In fact, it bears a startling resemblance to the use of the vulgar “tea bagger” term – you’re bound and determined to take a certain position and, only when called out on it, search for something to justify it.

Nice try. Epic fail.