F A Hayek
Serfs and the Warm Fuzzy Link
10/June/2009 12:30 Filed in: Weekly
Column
Last week I learned what I had perceived, calling
an American a serf is not a way to win friends and
influence people. That is especially true when you
mix in a little Bible teaching with an audience of
what is generally called evangelicals. Being called
a serf really doesn’t make you feel good about
yourself, and especially the plan that God has for
your life. That plan of course being what Francis
Schaeffer called, “personal peace and affluence.”
I didn’t write the book, “The Road to Serfdom.” F. A. Hayek wrote it a long time ago, even before I was born. The book basically describes the rise of pre WWII fascism in Europe, along with the compassion and complacency of what would soon be the Allies against Hitler and Mussolini. Hayek’s thesis basically warns about establishing what American pundits are now calling “European style socialism” during the reconstruction after the close of the war. All I did was just merge the two to make a somewhat logical point.
This road in Europe has pretty much been an autobahn, with really the only barrier being Margaret Thatcher’s British experiment in the 1980s, which found a following in America under President Reagan. In true American style, we however introduced steroids to the mix, pumping up everyone with mass body building exercises of cheap credit, expansive monetary policy, and real estate speculation.
As with drug steroids, economic steroids might help your major league career, but once drug testing and old age begin to show their effects, life goes down in a hurry. Can I get a witness on what has happened since mid 2007? Amen!
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I didn’t write the book, “The Road to Serfdom.” F. A. Hayek wrote it a long time ago, even before I was born. The book basically describes the rise of pre WWII fascism in Europe, along with the compassion and complacency of what would soon be the Allies against Hitler and Mussolini. Hayek’s thesis basically warns about establishing what American pundits are now calling “European style socialism” during the reconstruction after the close of the war. All I did was just merge the two to make a somewhat logical point.
This road in Europe has pretty much been an autobahn, with really the only barrier being Margaret Thatcher’s British experiment in the 1980s, which found a following in America under President Reagan. In true American style, we however introduced steroids to the mix, pumping up everyone with mass body building exercises of cheap credit, expansive monetary policy, and real estate speculation.
As with drug steroids, economic steroids might help your major league career, but once drug testing and old age begin to show their effects, life goes down in a hurry. Can I get a witness on what has happened since mid 2007? Amen!
Read More...
Twenty-first century feudalism
03/June/2009 11:48 Filed in: Weekly
Column
Last Sunday Christianity marked the historic
festival of Pentecost. While long disconnected from
the Jewish rendition of the same, the Pentecost
Sunday is recognized as the birthday of the church.
Churches with worship roots in a formal liturgy,
focus upon three Biblical readings each Sunday, one
from the Old Testament, one New Testament, and a
Gospel reading. In Protestant circles these reading
date at least from the Reformation, but probably
the reading’s roots go much further back, perhaps
even to before the schism between Rome and the
Orthodox. These Pentecost readings shared in many
denominations are: Old - Ezekiel 37:1-14; New -
Acts 2:1-21; Gospel - John15:26,27; 16:4b-15. For
those seeking a more contemporary addition,
“Rushing Wind, by Steve Green is found on iTunes by
Steve and other artists.
If you read these passages within in the construct of what is happening currently in the financial turmoil facing the world, they seem totally in sink with our reliance upon our own knowledge and wisdom, and how all the best, from all the finest, is dismally inadequate in its comprehension of present reality.
When have written specifically about the Ezekiel passage in “Dry Bones Valley” in November 2007 (PDF link), as well as mentioned it briefly in other articles. In that article we built upon how the passage refers to the restoration of national Israel which took place in the mid-twentieth century, it also should apply to the restoration of the church, which currently finds it glory not in God, but in the affairs and riches of the world, not much different than the nation of Israel in Ezekiel’s day. If you combine the two restoration principles you find them, discussed amazingly in Romans 11, where in order for we “wild olives” to be grafted in, the olive tree must first be restored.
Just as we can look back in the Bible and see applications and the reality of today, in similar fashion we can see similar parallels in common grace or the society as a whole. Conservative pundits have been calling President Obama a socialist from the time he became a candidate up to the present. From pretty much is inauguration the terms fascism, as been added to describe his developing regime. On some occasions even the word communist has been used. An interesting article in the English version of Pravda used the term Marxism to describe the whole current American scheme. “American capitalism gone with a whimper” is well worth the read.
From the liberal side of the political spectrum and much of the general population however still give the President high or glowing marks for his ability to “not let this crisis go to waste” as “you ain’t seen nothing yet,” to use the President’s own words.
What seems to be missing in all of this however, is really a touch with the reality of the whole situation and tying it into history, a history in which President Obama is just the current player in a line, much like the Pravda article describes. To say that Obama is trying to install “European style socialism” is the United States, grossly simplifies European culture, as well as it dumbs down the natural diversity of the American landscape as well as the true diversity of the American people.
Read More...
If you read these passages within in the construct of what is happening currently in the financial turmoil facing the world, they seem totally in sink with our reliance upon our own knowledge and wisdom, and how all the best, from all the finest, is dismally inadequate in its comprehension of present reality.
When have written specifically about the Ezekiel passage in “Dry Bones Valley” in November 2007 (PDF link), as well as mentioned it briefly in other articles. In that article we built upon how the passage refers to the restoration of national Israel which took place in the mid-twentieth century, it also should apply to the restoration of the church, which currently finds it glory not in God, but in the affairs and riches of the world, not much different than the nation of Israel in Ezekiel’s day. If you combine the two restoration principles you find them, discussed amazingly in Romans 11, where in order for we “wild olives” to be grafted in, the olive tree must first be restored.
Just as we can look back in the Bible and see applications and the reality of today, in similar fashion we can see similar parallels in common grace or the society as a whole. Conservative pundits have been calling President Obama a socialist from the time he became a candidate up to the present. From pretty much is inauguration the terms fascism, as been added to describe his developing regime. On some occasions even the word communist has been used. An interesting article in the English version of Pravda used the term Marxism to describe the whole current American scheme. “American capitalism gone with a whimper” is well worth the read.
From the liberal side of the political spectrum and much of the general population however still give the President high or glowing marks for his ability to “not let this crisis go to waste” as “you ain’t seen nothing yet,” to use the President’s own words.
What seems to be missing in all of this however, is really a touch with the reality of the whole situation and tying it into history, a history in which President Obama is just the current player in a line, much like the Pravda article describes. To say that Obama is trying to install “European style socialism” is the United States, grossly simplifies European culture, as well as it dumbs down the natural diversity of the American landscape as well as the true diversity of the American people.
Read More...