Ron Paul's Anti-Fed Crusade is Rooted in a Theocratic Reading of the Bible

[bobbyw24]

In the Tea Party’s short life, the Federal Reserve has been a target of its oppositional rage, spurred by Tea Party godfather Rep. Ron Paul’s persistent calls to eliminate it.

While Paul’s anti-Fed crusade is widely thought of as economic libertarianism, the roots of this combat lie in a theocratic reading of the Bible, arising out of the nexus between Paul (and now his son, Senator-elect Rand Paul), Howard Phillips and his Constitution Party, and Gary North and the Christian Reconstructionists.

For decades, the elder Paul, Phillips, and North have shared the libertarian economic philosophy of the Austrian School, which advocates a strict free market approach to an economy they portray in terms of individual choices and agreements rather than systemic forces. With respect to the Federal Reserve System in particular, they have argued against its fractional reserve banking, and its manipulation of interest rates to control economic ups and downs.

http://www.religiondispatches.org/a...fed’:_behind_palin’s_dig_at_‘unbiblical’_fed/

 

[Sola_Fide]

BUMP



10000000000% true. Most people here probably don't even know how influential the theonomic movement was in bringing sound money to the forefront.


Sound money is Biblical. There are so many warnings about debasement and theft in the Scripture it would be hard to list them all.

 

[Theocrat]

If We Want to Kill the Fed, We Must Obey God

I agree with that article. Many of the principles underlying the criticisms of the Federal Reserve come from Scripture, such as:

• "Thou shalt not steal... Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's." (Exodus 20:15, 17)
• "Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in mete-yard, in weight, or in measure. Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have: I am the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt." (Leviticus 19:35, 36)
• "A false balance is abomination to the LORD, but a just weight is his delight." (Proverbs 11:1)
• "And there was a great cry of the people and of their wives against their brethren the Jews. For there were that said, We, our sons, and our daughters, are many: therefore we take up corn for them, that we may eat, and live. Some also there were that said, We have mortgaged our lands, vineyards, and houses, that we might buy corn, because of the dearth. There were also that said, We have borrowed money for the king's tribute, and that upon our lands and vineyards. Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children: and, lo, we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters are brought unto bondage already: neither is it in our power to redeem them; for other men have our lands and vineyards." (Nehemiah 5:1-5)

 

[bobbyw24]

It is an interesting piece that should be read by all interested in ending the Fed

 

[fisharmor]

I don't know how comfortable I am making a strictly Christian judgment against the Fed... obviously it has its utility, but I think it's ultimately more useful to point out that Christianity doesn't have a monopoly pronouncement on the immorality of central banking.
Fact is, Judaism and Islam both look quite unfavorably on this nonsense, too.

As a Christian, I sure do wish more of my brothers and sisters in Christ would take a second to review this - but perhaps a double-edged attack is more appropriate.
People should know not only that their particular religion forbids this, but also that ultimately the only religion on earth which comes out in favor of it is statism.

Unfortunately, since most nominal Christians are really just statists with Jesus overtones, I don't think a direct religion-based argument would work very well. When your religion demands that you sacrifice your children to the state, and your religion handles the whole funeral (together with your local complicit clergyman to add the Jesus flavor), and creates shrines to their mortal remains so that their deaths can have meaning - I somehow suspect that a strictly biblical argument against the mechanism that finances it all will stick in their heads. Such people require conversion to an entirely different religion first.

 

[Sola_Fide]

I don't know how comfortable I am making a strictly Christian judgment against the Fed... obviously it has its utility, but I think it's ultimately more useful to point out that Christianity doesn't have a monopoly pronouncement on the immorality of central banking.

Why doesn't Christianity have a monopoly pronouncement on the immorality of central banking???

What non-arbitrary standard from an atheistic worldview is going to tell us that debasement and theft is wrong?

 

[Fredom101]

Do we really need religion to tell us the Fed isn't serving us economically?

 

[georgiaboy]

thanks for introducing me to this religious dispatches website. all sorts of interesting reading there.

though I agree with some of the analysis surrounding the subject of the article, it had some hit-piece aspects (newletters, really?) to it that will keep me from sharing it widely.

though true enough that sound money and honest weights & measures are indeed biblical, they're also logical economically, and implementing these politically does not equal reinventing our republic as a theocracy. Ron Paul does not advocate a theocracy.

 

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

From the article:

Reconstructionist theocracy, based on the Reconstructionists’ reading of the Bible, gives coercive authority to families and churches to organize other aspects of life.

Of course... Ron Paul talks about coercion all the time.

Ron Paul talks about the Non Aggression Principle and libertarian philosophy.

Reconstructionism is a theology that arose out of conservative Presbyterianism (Reformed and Orthodox), which proposes that contemporary application of the laws of Old Testament Israel, or “Biblical Law,” is the basis for reconstructing society toward the Kingdom of God on earth.

Reconstructionism is a theology that arose out of conservative Presbyterianism (Reformed and Orthodox), which proposes that contemporary application of the laws of Old Testament Israel, or “Biblical Law,” is the basis for reconstructing society toward the Kingdom of God on earth.

According to Gary North, women who have abortions should be publicly executed, “along with those who advised them to abort their children.” Rushdoony concludes: “God’s government prevails, and His alternatives are clear-cut: either men and nations obey His laws, or God invokes the death penalty against them.”

Ron Paul is against the death penalty, does not advocate resurrecting Witch Trials, does not advocate supplanting the Constitution with the Old Testament, and has not stated his goal is heaven on earth.

This bullshit should be moved to the religion subforum. Ron Paul is not a bat shit crazy, non-believer murderer.

 

[specsaregood]

Why doesn't Christianity have a monopoly pronouncement on the immorality of central banking???

well islam has similar views, in fact usury is forbidden in it. Just as it used to be by most christians, which is why jewish people tended to run/own banks.

 

[txaslftist]

Horse shit.

This is another attempt to either glom onto Ron Paul and thereby legitimize religious buffoonery or deligitimize Paul by association with religious buffoons.

The founding fathers were very clear about the terrible consequences of central banking, the constitution is clear the money should be gold and silver, and those arguments are sufficient to explain Ron Paul's opposition to the Fed (that and a host of sound Austrian economics principles).

Bringing religion into it is unnecessary and divisive.

 

[ChaosControl]

Uh, what the heck?

Nothing against Christianity, but some of that stuff is just as disturbing as the authoritarian left's insanity.

 

[AxisMundi]

In the Tea Party’s short life, the Federal Reserve has been a target of its oppositional rage, spurred by Tea Party godfather Rep. Ron Paul’s persistent calls to eliminate it.

While Paul’s anti-Fed crusade is widely thought of as economic libertarianism, the roots of this combat lie in a theocratic reading of the Bible, arising out of the nexus between Paul (and now his son, Senator-elect Rand Paul), Howard Phillips and his Constitution Party, and Gary North and the Christian Reconstructionists.

For decades, the elder Paul, Phillips, and North have shared the libertarian economic philosophy of the Austrian School, which advocates a strict free market approach to an economy they portray in terms of individual choices and agreements rather than systemic forces. With respect to the Federal Reserve System in particular, they have argued against its fractional reserve banking, and its manipulation of interest rates to control economic ups and downs.

http://www.religiondispatches.org/a...fed’:_behind_palin’s_dig_at_‘unbiblical’_fed/

Just out of couriousity, is this some "theocratic reading" as stated by Ron Paul, or is it some religious organization attempting to make the claim and assign it's own values to this?

 

[StilesBC]

What an utter pile of horse shit. Absolutely outrageous.

Arguments for sound money have absolutely zero to do with god or religion. It is about the right to own private property without it being debased (stolen from). This is a legal contention. Plain and simple.

Even Huerta de Soto, pious as any modern Austrian economist, rarely if ever evokes religion in his treatise on sound money, "Money, Bank Credit and Economic Cycles."

Seriously folks, I am warning you: if you give any credence to free market ideology being "faith based" rather than rooted in a careful scientific understanding of human action (which it is), you will destroy its legitimacy in the minds of millions of potential converts.

I am completely okay with sharing the movement toward individual liberty with those of faith. And I will always defend the rights of people to say and believe as they wish. But shall individual liberty become conflated with religion in a manner that is anything but secular, it will surely whither and die.

Invoking religion in place of Hayek's capital structure, or Mises' calculation argument completely de-emphasizes the latter, which undoes the work modern day Austrians have been doing to bring these ideas to the forefront of academia.

Can we please keep these ideas separate?

 

[Fredom101]

What an utter pile of horse shit. Absolutely outrageous.

Arguments for sound money have absolutely zero to do with god or religion. It is about the right to own private property without it being debased (stolen from). This is a legal contention. Plain and simple.

Even Huerta de Soto, pious as any modern Austrian economist, rarely if ever evokes religion in his treatise on sound money, "Money, Bank Credit and Economic Cycles."

Seriously folks, I am warning you: if you give any credence to free market ideology being "faith based" rather than rooted in a careful scientific understanding of human action (which it is), you will destroy its legitimacy in the minds of millions of potential converts.

I am completely okay with sharing the movement toward individual liberty with those of faith. And I will always defend the rights of people to say and believe as they wish. But shall individual liberty become conflated with religion in a manner that is anything but secular, it will surely whither and die.

Invoking religion in place of Hayek's capital structure, or Mises' calculation argument completely de-emphasizes the latter, which undoes the work modern day Austrians have been doing to bring these ideas to the forefront of academia.

Can we please keep these ideas separate?

Agreed, but also it is difficult to keep religion out of RP's run for office. The fact that RP is a Christian is just as dividing to the movement as if he were an atheist. On the positive side, RP is not Huckabee and running around talking about how we are a "Christian nation" and this kind of nonsense, but the fact that RP questions the theory of evolution no doubt turns of millions of people to his more solid ideas (like ending the fed, ending the income tax), and it becomes easy for those on the left to throw pot shots like this one to discredit him.

 

[JeremyDahl]

Good to know ending theft and corruption is at the core of beliefs held by Dr. Paul...

AUDIT THE FED!
END THE FED!

 

[ClayTrainor]

What an utter pile of horse shit. Absolutely outrageous.

Arguments for sound money have absolutely zero to do with god or religion. It is about the right to own private property without it being debased (stolen from). This is a legal contention. Plain and simple.

Even Huerta de Soto, pious as any modern Austrian economist, rarely if ever evokes religion in his treatise on sound money, "Money, Bank Credit and Economic Cycles."

Seriously folks, I am warning you: if you give any credence to free market ideology being "faith based" rather than rooted in a careful scientific understanding of human action (which it is), you will destroy its legitimacy in the minds of millions of potential converts.

I am completely okay with sharing the movement toward individual liberty with those of faith. And I will always defend the rights of people to say and believe as they wish. But shall individual liberty become conflated with religion in a manner that is anything but secular, it will surely whither and die.

Invoking religion in place of Hayek's capital structure, or Mises' calculation argument completely de-emphasizes the latter, which undoes the work modern day Austrians have been doing to bring these ideas to the forefront of academia.

Can we please keep these ideas separate?

Excellent post. I'm in complete agreement with you.

 

[jmdrake]

Horse shit.

This is another attempt to either glom onto Ron Paul and thereby legitimize religious buffoonery or deligitimize Paul by association with religious buffoons.

The founding fathers were very clear about the terrible consequences of central banking, the constitution is clear the money should be gold and silver, and those arguments are sufficient to explain Ron Paul's opposition to the Fed (that and a host of sound Austrian economics principles).

Bringing religion into it is unnecessary and divisive.

Talk about an overreaction......

The article isn't saying that you have to be religious to be anti fed. It is suggesting that Ron Paul's religious views may be part of his reasoning on attacking the fed. There is precedent for that view. Ron Paul is anti war based on the religious "just war theory". That doesn't mean you have to be religious to be anti war. I wouldn't call the just war theory "religious buffoonery". Would you?

Same thing with the fed. Lately I've been thinking about fiat currency in terms of the quote from Jesus to "render unto Ceaser that which is Ceaser's and unto God that which is God's". Some use this to justify taxes. But another way to look at it is that as long as you are dependent on "Ceaser" for your money, taxes are unavoidable. But if there were competing currencies (something that Ron Paul supports) the current borrow-tax-and-spend regime is much less certain.

 

[farrar]

Why doesn't Christianity have a monopoly pronouncement on the immorality of central banking???

What non-arbitrary standard from an atheistic worldview is going to tell us that debasement and theft is wrong?

I am an atheist. I believe In natural rights. That we derive our rights from our nature as perceptive beings. And beings that are self aware. To have rights is to have ownership. To own one's self is to be self aware. If we own ourselves then we have the final say in what happens to ourselves as individuals. To not own ourselves means to be immoral by simply existing, because breathing, standing, moving, living or dying would be acting on something that's not yours. If we own ourselves, then we ought to own what we produce, save that it have originally belonged to another. Because we must use our bodies to produce, the unowned to create, and our productions to trade and sustain our lives, than to infringe on the ownership of others is an attempt on their life. Assuming that it is not immoral for to objects without self awareness to collide into one another, and as such morality is an attribute concerned solely with life, than I believe this is a rational basis for morality outside of Christianity.

Likewise Islam, the Jewish faith, arguably have a share in whatever christianity claims, and therefore it has no monopoly.

In other words, I have a moral basis founded on property rights.

However others want to rationalize the immorality of the fed is up to them as far as i am concerned. I hate it too.

 

[farrar]

Talk about an overreaction......

The article isn't saying that you have to be religious to be anti fed. It is suggesting that Ron Paul's religious views may be part of his reasoning on attacking the fed. There is precedent for that view. Ron Paul is anti war based on the religious "just war theory". That doesn't mean you have to be religious to be anti war. I wouldn't call the just war theory "religious buffoonery". Would you?

Same thing with the fed. Lately I've been thinking about fiat currency in terms of the quote from Jesus to "render unto Ceaser that which is Ceaser's and unto God that which is God's". Some use this to justify taxes. But another way to look at it is that as long as you are dependent on "Ceaser" for your money, taxes are unavoidable. But if there were competing currencies (something that Ron Paul supports) the current borrow-tax-and-spend regime is much less certain.

Well, I can see how the left would feel uncomfortable with him or the right would feel more comfortable with him, if they thought he rationalized everything with religion. Most of us here don't care one way or the other, and if we do it certainly doesn't drag us over to the Marco rubio camp. But liberals and conservatives often times put more weight on that sort of thing than we do (at least politically). I could be a political ploy targeted at raising or diminishing support on one of the two sides, but I wouldn't bet my bottom dollar on it.