The Government of the New Heaven and Earth

Today’s post was inspired by a group of Questions from a Facebook friend and former coworker.  He wrote me the following:

As a preacher and pastor Ed Raby, I’m curious as to how you would describe the political structure of our future home: Heaven? Here on earth we argue the tenants of socialism, communism, capitalism, dictators, regimes, kings, emperors, presidents, etc,,,, Could we argue the God’s plan for us in Heaven is actually of a ‘socialist’ nature? Once we’ve earned our reward and enter into the kingdom, at that point are we not all going to be considered equal in God’s eyes? Of course in this life here on earth it cannot work, but in Heaven where anything is possible through God, is that what we can come to expect? Your theological point of view?

Thoughtful questions and deep ones. I am going to save the first one for last but take the rest in order:

Here on earth we argue the tenants of socialism, communism, capitalism, dictators, regimes, kings, emperors, presidents, etc,,,, Could we argue the God’s plan for us in Heaven is actually of a ‘socialist’ nature?

I don’t think so.  Socialism basically looks at the value of human beings and boils it down to economics and productivity.  The Bible boils down a person’s value to the fact that we are already equal in God’s eyes because we are all created in his image. Socialism in heaven would be silly.  All of us will have access to the same resources which have no limits.  Each person’s productivity then becomes simply a matter of desire.  Eternal life also means certain needs are no longer present which socialism attempts (and really fails) to address.  God does not look at us and assess our value based on our economics so socialism with its attempt to equalize economics is really not necessary in the New Heavens and New Earth.  Eternal life and the fact raw materials are unlimited makes most of our current economic systems obsolete.

Once we’ve earned our reward and enter into the kingdom, at that point are we not all going to be considered equal in God’s eyes?

Truth be told this is already the case even before entering heaven? God’s shows no partiality so everyone is judged and weighed by what we do with the gift of freewill we are given in relationship to his commands.  He also extends grace to all who will receive it, so theologically speaking we are all viewed equal by God now.  The problem is being viewed that way by other people and viewing other people equally.  In heaven, with the normal earthly status symbols being obsolete, this will be much easier.  This is another reason socialism fails here and in heaven because some are not viewed as human – namely the rich are nothing more than pockets to steal from.  Socialism has to demonize and dehumanize prosperous people through envy, jealousy and greed in order to justify theft from them through government taxation.  God does not need people’s resources as he can always create more so this does not really work and in a sense he is the richest person in the system.

Once we’ve earned our reward and enter into the kingdom, at that point are we not all going to be considered equal in God’s eyes?

I don’t think it will work in heaven either.  No one will be limited by insufficient resources in heaven and that is the crux of most earthly economic systems.  Socialism is bad here on earth and so it will be even worse in heaven because it would be totally unnecessary and just be repressive.  It also proceeds from a false premise of economic value for human beings. In heaven people are only limited by their finite nature, not their economics.

Your theological point of view?

I have studied the Bible for a long time but I discover new things every day and make new connections every day, so this is not going to be a definitive answer.  The one thing I can say is that right out of the gate is God expected Adam and Eve to be both personally and morally responsible for their actions.  He was not holding their hand every step of the way as they worked the earth and developed the garden of Eden.  He expects people to take responsibility for what he has given them here on earth – they were to be good stewards over what God had given them .  Government should reflect then a system that allows people to be free to do this and protects them and their rights to do this.  This of course leads to the first question:

I’m curious as to how you would describe the political structure of our future home: Heaven?

As I look through the Bible I can only see two periods where God seemed genuinely pleased with how his people governed themselves in relationship to Him and so these might serve as a basis for how heaven is governed.  The Garden of Eden before the Fall and the time of the Judges.  I pick these two because these are the only times when things are a genuine theocracy – that is rule directly by God himself.  God’s kingdom however is very different from most earthly kingdom in that in both cases, God seems quite unconcerned about the details of how people do things.  In fact he seems to have a very large loathing to intervening in the affairs of his people and does so very rarely.  God visits Adam and Eve but does not give them too many direct commands.  They are left pretty much to do as they please provided they don’t disobey those commands and God only truly gets involved with Adam and Eve’s affairs when they do indeed disobey.

The period of the Judges is much the same.  Some might argue with me that this is bad time for God’s people but that is because all the stories in Judges are at times when the people were disobedient.  I say they miss the other side where the people were obedient and thus both at peace and prosperous which are long periods in the Book of Judges. It should also be noted that when they try to leave the time of the Judges by ‘having a king like other nations” both God and Samuel the prophet object.  God himself goes so far to say that this is a rejection of Him being king. God thus equates the time of the Judges was Him being directly king over his people.  When they obeyed him they were blessed, when they disobeyed Him then things went to crap.  He however never forces this choice one way or the other. The time of the judges is described as a time where “everyone one did what was right in his own eyes” but this is not a statement of morality but a statement of political arrangement.  It is as statement ultimately of how free people were to act without a human king under God’s direct rule.  For full details of my thoughts on this you can read this post.

Christ’s  kingdom is very similar.  No one is forced to follow Jesus.  In fact Jesus boldly states that if you follow him the truth will set you free and whoever the Son sets free is free indeed. So in a sense Jesus sets conditions for those to follow him and be part of God’s kingdom but whether a person is subject to that kingdom is their choice. There are obvious consequences for not accepting Jesus as Lord and there are obvious benefits to accepting Him as Lord.  The issue though is the Jesus does not want coerced followers.

All this leads me to believe that the structure of the government of heaven might go something like this.  God will be King of the New Heavens and New Earth where we will live.  He is a true benevolent king so he understands that we will never grow as individuals or as a race with out the maximum amount of freedom and liberty possible so we can grow and develop.  Thus, God will rule as he always has, which is to say he will set up the main rules but leave much to us to both govern ourselves and that might include some of us being rulers or judges but under God’s law. The main difference is that resources for us to use for that development will be unlimited and we can always go to God and ask for his advice.  He may not give it though as he may know that in discovering these answers for ourselves we will grow as people and a human race. I see ultimately a benevolent dictatorship that grants the subjects a great deal of freedom to govern themselves in the context of God as ultimate authority.  God only intervening as king when it is truly and absolutely necessary.

Hopefully this answers the questions.  I also submit that like everyone else, I am looking through a glass darkly and can’t see all the details.  Those will have to wait.  I may do a follow up on this to address some of my still lingering questions.

Blessings and Cheers!!!

Rabyd Opinion – Michigan’s Proposal 1 – 2015 – This is More than Roads – Vote No!

I have held back until now to see which way the wind blows and despite the best efforts of people trying to put this forth as a ‘fix the roads’ bill, they seem to be losing almost roughly 3 to one if the latest polls are to believed.  As much as we Michigan people would like our roads fixed, there is a large amount of BS in this bill that people have sensed.  Mostly because the way this is presented you would think it is simply raising the sales tax to pay for roads.  That however is not how it is worded.  The full text:

A proposal to amend the State Constitution to increase the sales/use tax from 6% to 7% to replace and supplement reduced revenue to the School Aid Fund and local units of government caused by the elimination of the sales/use tax on gasoline and diesel fuel for vehicles operating on public roads, and to give effect to laws that provide additional money for roads and other transportation purposes by increasing the gas tax and vehicle registration fees. The proposed constitutional amendment would:

Eliminate sales / use taxes on gasoline / diesel fuel for vehicles on public roads.Increase portion of use tax dedicated to School Aid Fund (SAF).

Expand use of SAF to community colleges and career / technical education, and prohibit use for 4-year colleges / universities.

Give effect to laws, including those that:

Increase sales / use tax to 7%, as authorized by constitutional amendment.

Increase gasoline / diesel fuel tax and adjust annually for inflation, increase vehicle registration fees, and dedicate revenue for roads and other transportation purposes.

Expand competitive bidding and warranties for road projects.

Increase earned income tax credit.

I always get nervous when a ballot proposal is longer than a short paragraph.

OK, the first thing you notice is the change in sales tax but the first thing mentioned is School Aid Fund not roads.  The idea of this bill is to create new taxes, abolish other ones and absolutely ties the fixing of roads and the School Aid Fund together.  Now you will probably understand why the most humorous ad on TV to me was claiming this was not a shell game with tax money.  Holy Cow is this a shell game in and of itself and unless you’re deleting things from the Michigan constitution that actually gives me more freedom, that is going to make me nervous as well.

Now you have to go back a little here to understand why the School Aid Fund and the Roads in Michigan are a mess.  Firstly we need to understand that the way money is appropriated to road commissions in Michigan is based on a law form the 1970s and actually involves a dollar amount that is fixed.  That’s right folks nothing has changed in five decades as far as how the money is given out.

Secondly in more recent history when Granholm was still in power, one of the ways the legislature balanced he budget was to ‘borrow’ the money from the School aid fund promising to return it the next year.  The problem is then the Republicans won the governor’s mansion the next year and conveniently forgot they had done this.  The money was never returned.

Thirdly, they got creative and decided proposal A from back in the 1990s which increased the sales tax from 4% to 6% for the specific purpose of funding education didn’t mean that is all they could fund with it.  I remember this proposal because I was one of the few that opposed it because it involved an increase in taxes which I am always opposed to for the most part.  The problem is that when Snyder took power he wanted to create a situation in which public schools would be in trouble.   He wanted to hold teachers more accountable, but if the School Aid fund at the time had been all given to K-12 there would have been no need to lay off anyone because at the time it would have actually provided an increase per student.  So how do you create a crisis that creates layoff?  Give some of the monies to state universities and community colleges, that’s how.

What was practically created was universities swimming in cash with huge fund balances while K-12 school struggled and had to make cuts.  I know I was on my local board when these cuts were made and schools everywhere were struggling to stay solvent and actually keep a fund balance.  It created a perfect storm in which defunding combined with new laws on how teachers and administrators were to be evaluated based on merit instead of tenure resulted in layoffs.  Good or bad it did get rid of some teachers that were less than effective but it was clearly in my mind manufactured.

The point I am trying to make is that the School Aid fund was depleted by a ‘loan’ that was never repaid and a clever loophole found in Proposal A from the 90s to basically defund the schools on purpose for another end.  That is why the School Aid Fund is in trouble not that it does not make enough money.  It was a shell game played already from the same people who now want to tell me that this proposal will stop the shell game.

The other thing Snyder did that exasperated the problem, was spending a large amount of time trying to build a bridge between Detroit and Canada.  My personal opinion at the time was that it might help the economy and I could see the argument for it.  The problem for me as a libertarian is that the people who it would directly benefit from the bridge should build it and not all the taxpayers.  The other problem I began to have was the roads were so bad even back then that no one was going to be able to get to it if the roads didn’t get fixed first.

The bad roads in Michigan are a prime example of the many ways government screws things up.  The road problems are not new like they just appeared yesterday, they always exist.  This problem is always with us because of the weather being four seasons and you can wet, cold and warm all in the same Winter.  When Snyder took office they were a problem and it was what some used in their campaign against him this last time running.  The fact is the notion that things have suddenly got so bad we need to do something now is fear mongering.  This should have been dealt with this a long time ago but once again I feel like this is manufactured crisis through deliberate neglect to try to pass Proposal One in May which is without a doubt the most deliberate shell game of law changes I have seen in a while.  No thank you.

I have a more novel solution.  How about you do what your supposed to do as government with regard to the roads?  You fix them and if you need to change how money is appropriated, you change that first.  Don’t tell me the only solution is raising taxes when you just eliminated tons of debt without doing so.  Live within you means and fix the roads.  You dug these holes through neglect and poor planning, fill them in yourself and don’t put that on the shoulders of the Michigan people.  If that means trimming the fat and entitlements – DO SO!  I will not notice your absence if government leaves an area of responsibility.  You messed it up, you fix it and let me keep my money in my pocket.

IMHO.

The Rabyd Writer’s Soul – Getting There

 

Writing is coming easier and I have to say it is because I have relaxed a little bit about it and just seek to do some good writing rather than a whole bunch of it.  The blog is actually sort of caught up to Wednesday with this post and if I can get two more posts in today I will actually have a complete week up to this point.  Mondays always seem to be days where I just want to chill and relax and that interferes with my writing.  Sunday’s take a lot out of me in some respects.  I guess  lots of preachers suffer this syndrome so I don’t think it is unusual.  I just need to buck up on Mondays and write two posts and then relax.

The rundown:

Finances – Tax return time.  Need to hope we can get something back so we can make headway on our last debt.  At the same time we are almost ready to start making increased payments.

Family – Oddly enough I feel the family is Ok right now.  My grandma and uncle are facing some serious health issues but for the most part we all seem to be doing quite well.  Miss my oldest son but the other two make up for it by being around so I am good. My granddaughter Jane (Yes, she is named after Jane Austin) is the light of my life right now.  Her innocent look at the world without words yet is so fun and inspiring to watch.

Reading – Back to the reading a reviewing.  My previous post outlines where I ma heading there so enough said.

Writing – Blog is doing better.  Book outline is almost done for the Spring of writing my non-fiction book.  1000 words a day planned.  Hopefully this goal will help me keep moving with it.

Blessings and Cheers!!!

Rabyd Opinion – The Government, The Church and Marriage (Part One)

I am a pastor that has performed a lot of marriages.  I have also been the theologian who spent a long time looking a marriage Biblically and produced a fifty part series for this blog on marriage.  I ended with a lot of conclusions but the one thing I could not find for sure in a Biblical meaning of marriage is that required for Biblical marriage was a marriage license and filing said license with the government.  Sorry not there.  In Biblical times marriage was a religious and cultural thing and often had nothing to do with government approval.  Basically the ancient world folks went to parents, arranged the marriage, had a party and consummated the marriage with sex.  After that you were husband and wife or also possibly husband and wife number four.  My point is that there was no need for approval from a king or government in the whole process most of the time unless the parent was the king or something.

To those Christians who have turned to government to define marriage, you really don’t have a single Biblical leg to stand on because Bible is written at a time when the idea that the state should be involved in marriage was simply not a concept that existed.  In trying to get the government to define marriage purely as one man with one woman you are also kind whistling past the fact that polygamy existed as well as all kinds of marriage types where one’s wife could either be a true wife or just a concubine/handmaiden.  The government had nothing to do with that either.

On the flip side I feel the whole homosexual equal marriage rights crowd blew a wonderful opportunity to cripple the opposition because they want their marriages recognized by the state.  That opportunity was to basically come out and ask the question: “Why does marriage require government approval?”  Perhaps a more blunt and pertinent question would be – “Why is government involved in marriage at all?”  Had the homosexual equality movement come in with this angle they would have actually gotten some Christian support from some surprising places like some of the old-time Mormons and there are a surprising number of Christians of the regular stripe that would have gone this route too.  I know I have heard them talk.  I know personally of a man who lives with two women and they are definitely in a polygamist relationship but very good Christian people.  They are also not Mormon but they would have supported this just so they could say go down to a lawyer and draw up a will and other legal documents so both wives were covered in the event of their husband’s death.

The real practical question is this: “By being involved with marriage, What exactly does the government do that helps marriage?”  “Is there some benefit to marriage by the government being involved in it?”  The thing is the only reason marriage is defined by government is that they can profit from it.  Sorry I don’t see a Department of Marriage in the government.  What I do see is the government profiting from the issuing of marriage licenses and using marriage to make the tax code more complicated.  That’s pretty much it.  I mean what does government involvement do for marriage?  The answer is pretty much nothing.

Part of the reason perhaps is children and the protection of children.  I mean we don’t want ‘minors’ getting married.  But this to is pretty much an arbitrary thing and varies state to state as well.  I mean why is an eighteen year old a responsible adult but a seventeen year old not a responsible adult becomes a good question as well.  The fact is that in our good intentions with teenagers I think we cause a great deal of harm.  Now we have teen moms but isn’t part of the problem that the teen mom and the teen dad not really able to get married without parent approval?  Seems odd to me that we allow them to be morally responsible to have sex but not morally responsible enough to deal with the consequences of sex.  In Jewish culture children are responsible adults at twelve to the Torah and I think this is probably the best course.  Under the Torah, to thirteen year olds would be marriage and not have an option for divorce if they were discovered.  Talk about something that might have more force in keeping teens from having sex.

Back to the government, can anyone tell me what the government accomplishes by being involved in marriage that is beneficial to marriage itself?  To be honest I can’t think of anything they do that could not be much more easily accomplished by a trip to a lawyer and a religious leader if a person is religious.  I honestly think if the government wasn’t involved, it might actually be better.  Imagine that.

I know that I have left a lot out about the church’s involvement in marriage but that is the subject of next week’s opinion post so stay tuned.

 

Rabyd Philosophy – The Libertarian Test

If you head to the Libertarian Party website, one of the things you can click on at the top of the page is the Test to see what you political persuasion is and it calls itself the worlds smallest political quiz.  I have taken the quiz several times over the years but it is only on a recent try that I honestly cold say I got a 100% result as being 100% libertarian.   Try it for yourself.  In any case it only has ten questions and take probably a minute to take if you’re a quick thinker.  If you conscientiously answer each question truthfully you will find where you sit on things.  As a little exercise for myself to further definite my views I thought I would give a short answer written out about why I picked what I did for each question.

1. Government should not censor speech, press, media  or the internet – Agree.  I have never liked it when the government gets involved with any form of controlling information.  Even in time of war there should be the right to disagree with the war and write such without penalty.  To be honest this is getting harder to do with the internet anyway but it should be clear I get very antsy around people who want to control information because such a person is someone who believes they can handle that information better than yourself or want to punish you for your opinion.  The first step to totalitarianism is to try to control what people are informed of or restrict free speech.

2. Military service should be voluntary.  There should be no draft – Agree.  Yeah, I registered for selective service but to be honest I believe such things should be voluntary and honestly you get a better army with voluntary enlistment anyway.  Pragmatic issues aside, there is no way the government should force people to fight for it.  Have good and free government and people will line up around the block to fight for it.

3. There should be no laws regarding sex between for consenting adults – Agree.  Honestly how is there a crime if both sides are consenting?  It really is not the government’s business what people do in the bedroom and to be honest this cannot be stopped.  If it does not hurt me or steal my stuff there really should be no law about it.

4. Repeal laws prohibiting adult possession and use of drugs – Agree.  I may take some heat from my law enforcement friends but this is something that just needs to be done.  The drug war has become as ineffectual as prohibition was in the 20s and 3os.  The results are dead cops over bags of leafy material and powder and to me no amount of drugs seized is worth the life of a single cop that dies at the hands of the bad guys.  More than that though the principle stated about still applies.  A person doing drugs does not hurt me nor does it steal from me.  To criminalize this is kind of stupid leading to stupid results.

5. There should be no national ID card – Agree.  Some would argue that this would be Social Security cards and such but to me there is a greater privacy issue here where people have access in the government to my life based on this notion of a national ID card.  The fact is the SS card and number are used to gain access to your personal information regularly.  I always love discussions of people who claim a right to privacy and do see the fact their privacy is already compromised.

6. End corporate welfare.  No government handouts to corporations. – Agree.  I have always thought tis was a waste of money.  Capitalism basically states if you cannot compete then you die as a corporation.  Many of these corporations had they died would have been replaced by something else or if nothing replaced it then perhaps there was no longer a need the company was addressing.  The question though if your going to help major corporations how is this fair to small business.  This offers way too much chance of corruption and needs to be stopped.

7. End government barriers to international free trade. – Agree.  I agree for two very practical reasons 1) mutual economic benefit is the quickest path to peace between two countries and 2) economic growth requires us to understand the economy globally anymore.  By slamming up barriers we interfere with the free market’s ability to generate wealth.

8.  Let people control their own retirement, privatize social security – Agree.  This gets rid of the need for a national ID card for one and to be honest I feel most people would do better handling their own retirement.  You might see corporations offering pensions again which were far more lucrative if we didn’t have this illusion that the government would take care of us in retirement.

9. Replace government welfare with private charity – Agree.  Government welfare is the biggest bribe and control mechanism of certain politicians and it is supported by taxes that basically involve the immoral act of pointing the gun of government at certain people and forcing them to pay for someone else’s welfare when they might possibly have trouble paying for their own.  This is forcing people to be charitable and it is a lousy system and an immoral one.

10. Cut taxes and government spending by 50% or more – Agree.  I believe very strongly in a balanced budget amendment because what we should have is the government we can afford not the government we want to wantonly spend for.  This becomes easier if you limit governments role to defense, equitable justice systems and true public goods.  If that is all government did they would need far less money.

This of course creates an interesting issue for me.  I am absolutely lined up with the Libertarian Party but I think their political savvy needs work and a clear direction. I also question whether they have a real chance to win in most elections.  There does not seem to be an overall game plan and their idealism gets in the way.  In order to diminish government you have to gain control of it.  To gain control of government, you do have to be a little Machiavellian like it or not.

I could hold most of these views in the Republican Party but there would be some that would think my stance on the moral questions is soft.  If there is one thing for sure about religious republicans is that they want to control people’s morality with the force of government and they don’t see this is actually no morally better than their opponent who want to control people’s economics with the same force of government.  So Libertarian Party?  Perhaps.  This is something I need to think on further.

Rabyd Opinion – Scotland

If someone asks my ancestry as in who came over on the boat to make me a part of this country known as the USA, I do have to shrug my shoulders a little.  I consider myself a Celtic/Northwestern European mongrel.  German, Norman, Saxton, Welsh, Dutch and Brit (Biological grandfather was named Bowman)  and other assorted off shots of Barbarians that tried to conquer Rome.  I do however have an affinity for bagpipe music which while I can’t verify, it is said only Scotsman can appreciate the bagpipes.  So who knows?

Recently I saw the news that Scotland was going to try for independence but I am not so sure that is what they were trying for.  If there is anything I can say looking at Scottish history it is that they have not always been independent but thy have always sought to be treated with respect.  I don’t know the biggest thing you could say for this latest move is that it may have simply been the Scots standing up and saying to the rest of the United Kingdom – how valuable are we to you?

Honestly, Looking at what the new, never happened government of Scotland was proposing I could see failure written all over it.  First you are proposing a very socialist economy without and real support other than to tax your citizens into oblivion  I think it would have forced a change inside said government in less that five years as without the support of the British economy, this would have collapsed.  There view on defense was lousy too.  Let’s just get rid of all the nukes and sit here and hope no one bothers us.  Sorry this is a good way to get invaded.  Just ask all those Neutral countries that got swallowed up in WW2 by the Nazis.

The real problem was that the new proposed government gave Scots a country of their own independent of Britain but it did not give Scots any more personal freedom or independence.  The fact is the grass was not greener when it came to this proposal and if anything the new proposed government made the lawn look kind of dry and ‘we have done this before.’

I will tell you what would have worked for me and my Celtic blood.  Tell me that when Scotland is independent it is going to concentrate on the things Government should concentrate on.  Defense, a solid justice system and protecting my rights and the rest it is going to leave to the freedom of the individual citizen and the private sector to work out for themselves.  I would have seriously though of changing my citizenship and becoming Scottish.  Unfortunately the government was proposing much of the opposite of this and I am going to say this is why they lost.

Scots don’t just want an independent Scotland.  They want personal independence as well and until people figure that out, they are content to just be a part of Britain until another William Wallace rises up to give it to them.

IMHO

Rabyd Philosophy – Engaging Classical Liberalism – What’s My View?

After viewing this series I have to give a hand to Dr. Nigel Ashford for giving a good solid overview of classical liberalism and to Learn Liberty for putting them on YouTube.  It has been a good informative study.  I however look at it as not just touching classical liberalism so much as viewing the different levels of little or no government and why that should be.  Looking back at it I have the following observations.

The methodology of all the schools of thought we have considered but there seems to be one overarching understanding that government is flawed in essence and that it needs to be questioned rather than just accepted.  Whether you are believing that government always fails more than the market, that people should be allowed to act in their own best self-interests, that government cannot know what the best interests of an individual are, that government violates our natural rights, or that simply government is illegitimate and inefficient in and of itself; we all get to the same place in these schools.  We all get to the simple and profound idea that government should be limited and for damn good reasons.  I think all of the above when I think about the why government should be limited.  To me all the arguments about why government should be limited  have very valid points.  The question for me is how government should be limited?  That is the issue at hand for me.

I personally do not believe in anarchy.  I feel that in anarchy you would see an almost immediate desire to have some government and I feel it makes too weak a state to defend itself.  all talk about absolute rights becomes a moot point if you can’t defend them from a foreign or internal power.  Therefore I believe very strongly that if there is one thing government should do it is defense of the people in the nation from foreign and internal threats.  I think this is one area where government has shown itself to be fairly effective.  This is why when people talk about cutting defense spending I get a little antsy because it really is one thing that government should be doing.

Now before anyone asks, I would include things like police, fire and ambulance services because honestly these along with the military are supposed to be about protecting citizens individual rights, their life and their property.  I also would put the road system in defenses category.  Most people seem to forget that the freeway system was not originally built for the purpose of commerce although it does benefit that.  Road systems also have a defensive purpose of being able to move people and equipment in the event of war for defensive purposes.  The Romans realized this and our roads might also include the airways as well but the meaning is clear that this needs to be a place where government can at least have a hand in to that in the event of war, there would be no confusion as to who was in charge of the roads and why.

A courts system is debatable to me as I can see that companies often use arbiters to good effect and with far quicker results but a centralized system of basic law for the purposes of handling crime, civil suits and contract disputes should be in place ,but with very clearly defined limits that it is about protecting individual rights.  The fact is the courts should be bare bones and not as extensive as they have become.  Private means should be encouraged with only appeals to public courts being allowed if people dispute the arbiter’s decision.

The issue of what might constitute a public good does indeed bother me and some would point the Chicago school with the issue of children’s rights and safety especially the mentally handicapped.  This is an issue to be but to be honest I think children’s rights would fall under the courts as parents are made to realize that children have the same individual rights as them and they must be respected or face the same above court system for violating their children’s rights.  I am not sure though if a special legal category should be created for people who cannot take care of themselves like the mentally handicapped but once again I fail to see how the court system would not be able to handle this if their concern is to maintain the personal rights of all citizens regardless of mental capacity and other factors.  I am not sure this is a public good or not already covered under the government’s role as a protector of individual rights regardless of who that individual might be.

Public goods become a sticky issue.  I feel that in order to qualify for this status you would indeed have to have something that no one can be excluded from and benefits everyone.  It would also have to be proven that government is the only way this could be done.  I think based on these criteria there would be little that would actually qualify. If government can produce a program that is open to everyone and genuinely does a better job based on evidence than private options.  This does not leave too much and one of the evidences I would want to see is that it can sustain itself financially.

One of the issues I wrestle with is public education. I think every citizen should be educated but how to do that without big brother government is an issue.  I think for instance a voucher that covers the basic level of education for anyone but options if you wanted to spend more money to get a better education based on a competitive market might not be a bad idea.  Whether or not public schools should be an option  might be debatable but I don’t think it would eliminate government creating a public school system but it would have to prove it was competitive with other options based on market forces.

This of course brings up the issue of taxes.  I think any government no matter how limited will have taxes.  I am not sure that all forms of taxation are theft.  I think how a tax is levied is an important consideration as to whether it is coercive or not.   It is probably worth a post of its own so I will put it on my list.

I am still left with many thoughts but this series ahs definitely clarified the issues involved.

Blessings and Cheers!!!