If a Libertarian Gave a Sermon for Passover

that’s quite insulting to use a large number of people’s religious heritage to promote an ideological message. pharoah didn’t create jobs – he made slaves. “jobs” are generally understood to be wage contracts freely engaged in and freely broken. we can argue about the wisdom of government “creating jobs”, or even the ability of government to “create jobs”, but don’t compare it to slavery and don’t try to score a cheap point by contrasting a faith shared by billions with fiscal policy. no, we shouldn’t see God in government. who does? you could have and should have just left it at that.

The_Orlonater: i understand that. my concern is not people who have a misplaced faith in government. my concern is the use of moses and the passover as a libertarian talking point, and the identification of people who would consider fiscal policy with pharaoh – and more insultingly the juxtaposition of such people with the tenets of the jewish faith. if someone acts like the government is god, that’s worth criticizing them for on its own merits. if someone’s not a libertarian the passover story shouldn’t be twisted to make it appear that they’re being inconsistent with the jewish faith.

You can also draw a Eucharist analogy with the state magically transforming fecklessness of voters and politicians into acts of state which are to be rationalized e.g. claiming that FDR wisely saved capitalism from itself rather than firing out a random stream of programs split up along political boundaries.

The state as “final arbiter” stands in for divine judgment, obviously.

In the other direction, I would point out that Jesus said “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. Render unto God that which is God’s.” He didn’t say “Be Caesar”, and the directive is incoherent if directed to Caesar.

You really just compared government fiscal or health care policy to slavery … really?

It’s crap like this that makes nobody take libertarians seriously. The second you even attempt to compare government health care or fiscal policy to slavery* everyone just rolls their eyes and thinks you are a crazy. Primarily because, the comparison is crazy. This is a problem with almost all libertarians. Everything you disagree with is somehow unparalleled government tyranny tantamount to involuntary servitude. If you want people to take you seriously, you need to put things in a perspective that is actually rational.

I can only hope this was an attempt at a joke, because it’s terrible as a polemic. Given this is online and I can’t tell the tone and it’s obviously not even remotely funny I’m going to assume the comparison was serious – though I hope not.

*Which oddly enough, despite the excessively detailed historical records in Egypt, nothing evens mentions Jewish slaves but whatever.

@anonymous

It’s a metaphor, and as such, will fail eventually upon dissection, but is made to make a general point. Is your objection really with the particular failings of this metaphor, or Arnold’s use of religious iconography and language in general?

(IOW, if someone’s not a Libertarian, why would they be worried about what a Libertarian is using as his object lesson?)

To anonymous, if you look at chapter 47 of Genesis, you’ll see that the Israelite people sold themselves into slavery to escape starvation. I think Mr. Kling’s metaphor rings very true in light of that account because people are willing to sell themselves into slavery to government for the promise of healthcare.

Mostly Democrats observe passover, thus no such sermons.

@anonymous,

thelogians and historians widely believe that the “slavery” referred to in the torah is more akin to indentured servitude than to our common conception of slavery. accepting this belief as accurate, would you find arnold’s analogy less offensive?

a cheap point by contrasting a faith shared by billions with fiscal policy

@anon

Billions of Jews?

As the saying goes, you’re entitled to your own (hysterical) opinion, but not your own facts.

Its brilliant I might actually use this some time in the future. Most people tend to forget everything is religious especially politics.

Anonymous typifies progressives when he espouses that everyone has the right to not be offended, or that ideological messages that are against government are somehow offensive.

I will bring this to my grandparents’ seder table next week. Three generations of Jewish libertarians and counting!

One of your best, Arnold. Keep up the great work!

Since the Egypt/Exodus story was fabricated centuries after the fact as a rationalization/justification for the then-existing political/religious power structure, it strikes me as eminently a propos that it should be invoked here to justify a political view that is just as fantastic and fictional as the story being employed.

For you libertarians out there that also like the bible, check out 1 Samuel 8.

When Samuel (the high priest) was old, he appointed his sons judges over Israel. When the sons started taking bribes, The Israelites asked Samuel to give them a king. In verses 10 through 20 Samuel warns them of the perils of having a King [all governments in my mind]. Mainly taxes (vs. 15 and 17).

However, the best is in verse 20 when the people argue for the merits of a king by saying that a king will “go before us and fight our battles.” They wanted to absolve themselves of personal responsibility! They wanted a nanny state!

‘Read on the rest of the Book, and put that section into context. See how well that nanny state worked out for them. Not too well. Lead to Babylonian exile and ultimately Roman rule.’

1 Samuel 8 10-18

“10 Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king.”
11 He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots.
12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots.
13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.
14 He will take the best of youry fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants.a
15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants.
16 Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use.
17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves.
18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the Lord will not answer you in that day”

This verse clearly supports Arnold’s view. Also it says in plain language that we ourselves must deal with this problem because G-d will not do it for us.

hiro no bosch wrote:

“Governments have and can create jobs. It’s been done since, uh, the first governments were in place.”

How exactly can a government create a job? What exact product did government produce in order to create the wealth necessary to create the job? All I know is that a government has a power to tax. Tell me: how can a government create a job if there are no producers to tax?

“And governments have successfully implemented universal healthcare. Just look up, uh, most any country in western Europe. Or Canada. Or Japan. Or better yet, talk to someone who’s actually from a country with universal healthcare. You’ll find that the rhetoric used to scare Americans out of supporting universal healthcare are just that: scare tactics.”

Yes, because all inspire to be just like Europe where debt bombs and demographic bombs are blowing up, Canada where healthcare is slowly crowding out all other forms of spending, and Japan which still has not extracted itself from its own self-inflicted recession. I’m glad you take solace in mediocrity.

Hayek did not name growing/socialist big government “the road to serfdom” for nothing.

“It is, and always has been, the role of government to stimulate a nation’s economy and to ensure that there are jobs when there are none available”

Really? If that’s the case you should be able to find the exact ‘chapter and verse’ of the US Constitution stating as such.

We’ll wait.

Hiro:

It is, and always has been, the role of government to stimulate a nation’s economy and to ensure that there are jobs when there are none available.

Actually, I don’t think any goverment before about the 1880s at the earliest would have assumed this. So for the vast majority of history — hell, for the vast majority of the Westphalian order — this was not the case.

Excellent post, Arnold.

The only jobs government creates are a pox on the people. Government jobs produce nothing. In Oregon we had this magical and mystical pronouncement that the *stimulus package* had produced a zillion jobs. Cause for celebration, right? The average length of the jobs was 2 weeks. They counted jobs created including people who were already working but were employed on a nanny job that was affected by the *stimulus*. If anyone can come up with an example of socialism or any other form of statism making EVERYONE’S life better, and without creating a loser class, I would definitely be interested in seeing it. Libertarians look for win/win. Statists seem to be happy with lose/lose or win/lose. Look at your programs. Show me any of them where everyone comes out ahead. In a free market, that is normal. In socialism/statism, it is impossible.

We can quibble over details and definitions, but Arnold Kling’s point, his message is more accurate than the atomic clock in Boulder, Colorado. My gratitude to for this poignant post.

Ron