More from ChicagoBoyz, Jay Manifold this time:
If things go as I both fear and hope, it may become a modern-day (and admittedly far more comfortable) version of hunkering down in a Christian community in the Eastern Mediterranean in the 60s and 70s AD. This is where I note that for all the rationalizations of every imaginable political system by believers over the past two millennia, the political advice of the New Testament may be summarized as “stay out of trouble.”
He closes with a quotation from the libertarian POV character in the excellent "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress":
I will accept the rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
"I will accept the rules" means something different here than what that phrase would usually imply.
ReplyDeleteI take it to mean he accepts the reality that society makes that demand on him for its own purposes, and he'll suffer the consequences if he breaks them. But he doesn't believe the rules have independent validity, certainly not a validity that overrides his conscience. I struggle with this, though. Sometimes I will follow a law I don't believe in because I believe I have given my promise to do so. I used to be cavalier about speed limits, for instance, but when I took county office I felt I had to cut it out. I also think that, as I age, I'm less justified in risking creating a hazard on the road. Otherwise, I've never felt that the speed limit had any moral claim on me, and I'd cheerfully evade it if I could.
ReplyDeleteWhat I mean above, in part, is that my promise is morally binding on me even if the law is not.
ReplyDeleteI definitely need to read this post. Can you provide a link? I disagree that “the political advice of the New Testament may be summarized as, ‘stay out of trouble.’”
ReplyDeleteLarry
Larry
ReplyDeletehttps://chicagoboyz.net/archives/7456
Heinlein and Independence Day
The Christian communities in the Eastern Mediterranean, the ones still existing, are still hunkered down.
ReplyDelete