Lux Lucet

The angry voter.

The angry 2016 voter. Anyone who’s followed presidential politics even a little this year has heard all about it. The establishment seems puzzled by it. Jeb Bush, the early odds on favorite to win the Republican nomination, never connected with voters. His campaign is over, an object lesson that all the money in the world cannot buy public support. Hillary Clinton began the campaign with an aura of inevitability about her. Everyone knew the White House was hers for the taking. Instead she finds herself in a political dogfight with an elderly socialist Vermont. And with a possible FBI indictment hanging over her head, her problems on the campaign trail may be the least of her worries.

When it comes to voter anger, my first reaction is wonder what took them so long. Theft, lies and double standards have infected the whole of society, and it is amazing to this author just how much nonsense people have been willing to tolerate from the so-called masters of the universe who rule us. But on second thought, is voter anger really a positive development? The apostle Paul tells us it’s good to be zealous in a good thing always. And anger, if it’s focused on the proper object and seeks redress in the proper way, can be good. But anger can easily be channeled in the wrong direction, scapegoating the wrong party or going about things in such a way as to actually make a bad situation worse.

Ever since Soren Kierkegaard famously praised the pagan for worshipping his false god with infinite passion, men have carried about in their minds the false notion that sincerity is more important than truth. But the Bible knows nothing of this notion. Truth is everything. How one feels about it makes no difference. It was the same apostle Paul who praised zeal when focused on good ends, who rebuked the Jews, his countrymen, for having a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. Zeal without knowledge is not a good thing. In fact, it is downright dangerous.

Yes, the voters are angry. And no doubt they should be. But this author is concerned that all that anger will amount to nothing positive unless it is matched with understanding. A political analyst writing on CNBC recently voiced my concern when she commented, “Candidates from both parties will put pressure on Wall Street and we’re likely to see higher taxes and more regulation.” What a horrible thought. High taxes and government regulation, aren’t those a major part of what’s wrong with this country rather than a cure for what ails us? Aren’t those levers of the elite, which they use to dominate people’s lives and reshape society more to their liking? Aren’t they instruments of corruption and crony capitalism used by the well connected to stifle competition and self-deal? Of course they are. I hope that the commentator is wrong about what she says. But I’m greatly concerned that she is right.

If the voter anger of 2016 is to effect any positive change, Americans must have a clear understanding of the problems facing our nation and the solutions for solving them. Below are a few examples where the electorate seems to be lacking in one or both these areas.

Monetary Policy/The Fed

Murray Rothbard aptly described big government as it is practiced in our day as the welfare/warfare state. That is to say, the socialist liberals and militarist conservatives conspire against the Constitution and the best interests of the American people by swapping favors, saying, “I’ll vote for your new welfare program if you’ll support my initiative to promote a new weapons system that will benefit my district.” This is the political process of horse trading by which government grows and liberty shrinks.

But what stands behind the welfare/warfare state, what makes it all possible, is central banking. Without central banking, which in the US means without the Federal Reserve System (the Fed), the fiscal deficit driven welfare/warfare state would quickly come to an end. Politicians know this, which is the reason most of them refuse to discuss the evils of central banking and fiat currency.

But despite the attempts of most in the political and intellectual establishment to keep people in the dark about the Fed has played in creating the current financial mess, the process is actually fairly easy to understand. First, the federal government overspends, that is, it allocates more money to government projects than it has in tax revenues to cover them, thus creating a financial deficit. Second, in order to make up for the deficit, the Treasury borrows the money by issuing bonds. These bonds are sold at auction to large financial institutions called primary dealers. Third, the Fed then purchases some of these bonds from the primary dealers by crediting their accounts at the Fed – the primary dealers have accounts at the Fed the way you and I might have a checking or savings account at our local bank – with the funds to cover the sale price of the bonds.

But this raises the important question, where does the Fed get the money to buy the bonds? The short answer is this: it creates the money ex nihilo, out of nothing. A Fed publication titled “Putting it Simply” describes the process of money creation thus: “When you or I write a check, there must be sufficient funds in our account to cover the check, but when the Federal Reserve writes a check, there is no bank deposit on which that check is drawn. When the Federal Reserve writes a check, it is creating money.” The Fed’s ability to create new dollars is not subject to any physical limitation such as the requirement to obtain more gold to back the new dollars. This means, at least in theory, that there is no limit to the number of new dollars that can be brought into existence. A currency, the supply of which can be expanded at will by a central bank, is called an “elastic” currency.

It is this awesome power to create money out of nothing that allows the federal government to spend beyond its means, knowing that the Fed is always there to serve as a buyer of last resort for Treasury bonds. And know you know how the US federal government has been able to pile up $19 Trillion in debt but never raise taxes. The Fed just creates new money.

Of course, all that new money creation comes at a price, albeit one that few people understand: price inflation. When you go to the grocery store, you’ve probably noticed that the price of food just keeps going up and up. Well, there’s a reason for that, and it has little to do with the typical explanations given in the mainstream press: droughts, labor unrest, or greedy speculators. The reason prices are going up, is because in reality the value of your dollars is going down. As the Fed creates more and more currency units, the value of all existing units is diluted. Thus, when we talk about rising prices, what we’re really describing is the destruction of the value of our money. And it is critical to understand that the value of the dollar is going down, because the Fed keeps creating money to pay for the deficit spending of Congress. There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

The Fed is the fountainhead for much of the evil that has befallen our nation, yet none of the current presidential candidates seems to understand this. Or, if they do, they won’t discuss it publically. Bernie Sanders, perhaps the candidate who has been most outspoken in his criticism of the banking system, proposes to solve our banking problems by increasing regulations and adding new taxes, seemingly oblivious to the predations of the Creature from Jekyll Island.

Until the American people demand an end to the Fed and a return to sound money, there is no reason, apart from complete systemic collapse or the return of Christ, to expect an end to the fascist welfare/warfare state that has fastened itself on the American nation over the last century. Unfortunately, none of the current crop of presidential candidates has focused attention on the Fed in any systematic way.

Militarist Foreign Policy

This is a pitfall for many conservative Republicans. We have no quarrel with those who wish to provide for an adequate defense of the nation. According to the Bible, defending citizens evil doers, foreign and domestic, is one of the few legitimate functions of government. The Constitution of the US recognizes national defense as a valid concern of the federal government as well.

But where we break with many conservatives is over their support for what some have euphemistically described as a “robust” US foreign policy. In plain language, robust foreign policy means the current American practice of constant foreign meddling, preventive war, occupation and empire building.

The US has been fighting the global war on terror in the Middle-East for over fourteen years, and what do we have to show for it? There seem to be more radical Muslim terrorists now than there were at the time of the 9/11 attacks. The stable secular governments of Iraq and Libya, which served as bulwarks against jihadist elements, have been destroyed. And if this weren’t enough, the US seems bent on overthrowing another such secular regime in Syria. American politician such has Hillary Clinton arrogantly proclaim “Assad [the president of Syria, Bashar Assad] must go” as if she were an empress dismissing some sorry excuse of a provincial satrap.

Who gave any US government official the right to say such things? But what is more, why do the American people allow and encourage their politicians to go on this way? It’s really not that hard to understand why the US is hated in so many parts of the world. And it isn’t our freedoms that make foreigners hate us. To a large degree, it’s our bombs, our drones and our troops on their soil.

The Bible gives us a proper prescription for foreign policy. It’s Jesus’ Golden Rule, “Therefore whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12). Americans would never accept foreign troops on US soil, neither would they tolerate a foreign power dictating to the president and Congress what they should do. With that in mind, is it so very hard to understand why the people of other nations might be offended when the US federal government attempts to dictate to them how they should live?

But for all that, it seems, at least on the Republican side, most of the candidates are in a race to see who can carpet bomb the most nations the fastest. None of the candidates could be described as peace candidates, but oddly enough, it is Donald Trump who has been the least bellicose of the lot. Yet even he has talked about going after and killing the families of terrorists, as if it were proper to hold the parents of jihadists responsible for the evil acts of their adult children.

Geopolitically speaking, the US is in a lot of trouble. And we have gotten to this point largely due to our own arrogance in thinking we are the exceptional nation, possessing the right to tell everyone else how to live, when Biblically speaking our job is to mind our own business, set a good example, and stay out of foreign wars.

Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump.

Domestic Policy/Immigration

Regarding domestic policy, the hot button issue at the moment is immigration. The two leading Republican candidates, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, favor building a wall. Trump has added to his position the promise that he will get Mexico to pay for it.

Immigration is a problem, but my concern is that in our push to build a wall, we will expend valuable capital, both financial and political, that could better be spent elsewhere.

Before discussing the issue of illegal immigration, it’s worth asking why it is that people come to this country illegally in the first place. One supposes that a big reason is that they believe the job opportunities in the US are better than those where they live and that the gamble of entering the US illegally is worth the risk.

Another reason is the generous welfare state that exists in the US. If a woman comes to the US and has a child on American soil, that child is referred to as an anchor baby. Although illegal immigrants cannot apply for welfare benefits on their own, they can apply for them on behalf of their US born children.

Further, the federal government mandates that hospitals treat anyone who shows up in an emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay. As a result, many who are in this country illegally receive free medical care, the ultimate cost of which is born by American citizens. Children of illegal immigrants also receive free education in the public schools.

With all the free taxpayer funded goodies available to those who come to this country illegally, the only wonder is that there isn’t more illegal immigration than there currently is. It is our contention that as long as powerful incentives remain in place, both job and welfare related, there is no reason to suppose a wall along the Rio Grande will do much long-term good in solving the immigration issue.

Rather than building a wall, addressing the birth-right citizenship issue would seem like a more promising place to begin. There is no morally compelling reason that the children of non-US citizens should be declared citizens if they are born within the territory of the US. It’s true that the US is a proposition nation, but while many may find the proposition “I want to have my child at taxpayer expense and request welfare benefits to him” attractive, there is no good reason to force American citizens to accept this.

In place of the current practice of declaring those born on US soil to be US citizens, we would propose a system based on that of the Presbyterian church. Just as church membership is obtained either by having at least one parent who is a church member or by profession of faith, in like fashion US citizenship should be granted automatically to children having at least one American parent or to those who take the an oath of citizenship themselves.

Addressing the birth-right citizenship issue will not solve all of our issues with immigration, but it would be a good place to start. In the opinion of this author, a much better place than that of building a wall.

Conclusion

As Christians, it can be very easy to get caught up in the heat of an election and fall into the trap of supposing that we must adopt the viewpoint of one of the candidates for office. But logically, this is not required. It just may be that all of the candidates are wrong on a particular issue, and there is no reason to suppose we are bound to accepting the philosophical alternatives put before us.

It is good to be zealous in a good thing always. But the qualifying words in Paul’s statement are “a good thing.” It is not true that it matters not what a man believes as long as he is sincere. Zeal on its own, zeal without knowledge, is insufficient for addressing the many serious issues that face our nation today. Zeal is good, but only when it’s married to knowledge.