A Man's Home is His Castle

"A man's home is his castle" is not just a quaint expression. It is an ideal imbedded in the jurisprudence of both Britain and the United States. The authors of the Bill of Rights to the Constitution of the United States made sure that man's home as castle remained inviolate. Or rather, they sought to turn the clock back to the days when it was inviolate, before the abuses of the years leading up to the American Revolution.

Here are the words of a prominent colonial attorney, one James Otis:

Now, one of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one’s house. A man’s house is his castle; and whilst he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ, if it should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this privilege. Custom-house officers may enter our houses when they please; we are commanded to permit their entry. Their menial servants may enter, may break locks, bars, and everything in their way; and whether they break through malice or revenge, no man, no court can inquire. Bare suspicion without oath is sufficient.

Everyday one can read of another abuse, of a no-knock warrant being served in the middle of the night where someone is shot dead by government agents while attempting to defend his home and family. There is no excuse for this. It has to stop.

Police spokesmen will say that people should not resist the police or point guns at them. Pray tell, how does one know that the people breaking into ones house in the middle of the night are police? Just because a man yells, "POLICE!" does not make it true. Criminals are perfectly capable of shouting, "POLICE!"

To permit the continuance of no-knock warrants is to strip away all pretense that a man has the right to defend his home, his castle.

Another important aspect of many of these searches is that they are not based upon probable cause and they are not supported by oath. But the sheeple know nothing of these principles from their indoctrination education in the government school system. They can't miss what they never knew they had.

Read this fact-filled article by John Whitehead to be enraged at the abuses of government and common sense.

Why Christians Should Oppose the Drug War

"A free man must be able to endure it when his fellow men act and live otherwise than he considers proper. He must free himself from the habit, just as soon as something does not please him, of calling for the police...[h]e who wants to reform his countrymen must take recourse to persuasion. This alone is the democratic way of bringing about changes. If a man fails in his endeavors to convince other people of the soundness of his ideas,he should blame his own disabilities. He should not ask for a law, that is, for compulsion and coercion by the police.” Ludwig von Mises

The failure of the War on Drugs needs to be acknowledged and accepted by Christians. We need to stop supporting this war. Not only does it fail to accomplish its stated goal, it is harmful to liberty.

"The war on drugs is a failure. It has failed to prevent drug abuse. It has failed to keep drugs out of the hands of addicts. It has failed to keep drugs away from teenagers. It has failed to reduce the demand for drugs. It has failed to stop the violence associated with drug trafficking. It has failed to help drug addicts get treatment. It has failed to have an impact on the use or availability of most drugs in the United States." Laurence Vance

I couldn't agree more with Mr. Vance. And here he points out the damage done by the War on Drugs:

"The other mischievous dangers of the drug war that have been let loose are legion. The war on drugs has clogged the judicial system, unnecessarily swelled prison populations, fostered violence, corrupted law enforcement, eroded civil liberties, destroyed financial privacy, encouraged illegal searches and seizures, ruined countless lives, wasted hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, hindered legitimate pain treatment, turned law-abiding people into criminals, and unreasonably inconvenienced retail shopping. The costs of drug prohibition far outweigh any possible benefits."

Certainly it is acceptable to call the abuse of drugs a "vice." And so it is. There is no reason we shouldn't be free to avoid association with drug users if we so choose. But we are wrong to use the government and its monopoly on violence to force others to comply with our preferences. Murder is already a crime. Theft is already a crime. We aren't tolerating murder and thievery when we stop enforcing drug prohibitions or decriminalize possession of drugs.

Read more here:

Laurence Vance Explains the Drug War

8 Reasons Not To Send Your Daughter to be a Stripper

Lately there has been a flurry of vitriol directed at this blog post here. This man had the audacity to suggest that women are different from men (oh my!) and that parents should not assume that every daughter should be sent to college. To back up this attempt to encourage parents to be thoughtful rather than to be automatons he provides "8 Reasons to NOT Send Your Daughter to College."

In the dozens of comments I've read from professing believers, I have yet to read even one that addresses the truth of any of his points. There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth, to be sure, but no displays of logic or attempts at argumentation.

In the interest of being illustrative, I shall create my own list and then use the comment section to repeat some of the silliness being passed off as legitimate criticism of the notion that a woman ought not necessarily attend college.

8 Reasons to NOT Send Your Daughter to be a Stripper

1.  She will attract the wrong types of men.

2.  She will be in a near occasion of sin.

3.  She will not learn to be a wife and mother.

4.  The cost of her dance lessons will be difficult to recoup. 

5.  You don't have to prove anything to the world.

6.  It could be a near occasion of sin for the parents.

7.  She will regret it.

8.  It could interfere with a religious vocation.

Feminism and the Destruction of Western Society

This post over at Alpha Game blog gives an example of how feminism and the female imperative are contributing to the destruction of Western society. Patriarchy is where we need to return.

I especially appreciate the observations of one commenter concerning the behavior of his chickens and how women engage in similar antics.

Why Feminized Societies Will Fail (at Alpha Game)

Longish Quote from C. S. Lewis

If what you want is an argument against Christianity (and I well remember how eagerly I looked for such arguments when I began to be afraid it was true) you can easily find some stupid and unsatisfactory Christian and say, 'So there's your boasted new man! Give me the old kind.' But if once you have begun to see that Christianity is on other grounds probable, you will know in your heart that this is only evading the issue. What can you ever really know of other people's souls -- of their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles? One soul in the whole creation you do know: and it is the only one whose fate is placed in your hands. If there is a God, you are, in a sense, alone with Him. You cannot put Him off with speculations about your next door neighbours or memories of what you have read in books. What will all that chatter and hearsay count (will you even be able to remember it?) when the anaesthetic fog which we call 'nature' or 'the real world' fades away and the Presence in which you have always stood becomes palpable, immediate, and unavoidable?

Mere Christianity, Bk IV, ch. 11

He makes a great point concerning the futility of arguing against God by using the poor examples of individual Christians. He misses it, of course,  when he claims that ones fate is placed within ones own hands, as it would be as nonsensical for God to leave election within the control of humans as it would have been for Him to have left the job of creation with man. More nonsensical, even, as our election is vastly more important than the molecules that make up our universe. God doesn't even leave us to choose what type of weather we shall enjoy today, He knows we could never choose Him apart from His election of us.

Reason will never lead us to Christ, although it may convince us that we have, in fact, been apprehended of Him.

John Milton Quote on Truth

Let her and Falsehood grapple;
who ever knew Truth put to the worse
in a free and open encounter?
—John Milton, The Areopagitica

 

I hold to this same philosophy. Not being a poet, however, I could never express it as Milton does.

Speak the truth. Let the detractors defend their arguments. If they lie, truth will prevail. If they speak truth, then we will all be in agreement, no?

Let Your Women Keep Silence In The Churches

Here is the text about which I am going to comment:

 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. 1 Timothy 2:11-12

The questions I ask myself concerning these verses are these: Does this mean anything to Christian women today and did the author say this with the intention of people ordering their behavior in accordance with what is said? If the author DID intend to be instructive with these words, what do the words mean?

In response to my first question, I will say that I believe that these verses, whatever they mean, are applicable and require the attention of believers in all time periods, regardless of culture. If someone who claims that the Bible is true and that it is the Word of God disagrees with that sentiment, the burden of proof is on him or her to explain why these verses are not modernly relevant. On this point I cite 2 Timothy 3:16-17:

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.

Having determined that these verses mean something to me and should be instructive as to my behavior, how can I conform myself to what is taught therein? When Paul says "the" woman, "a" woman and "the" man, to whom is he referring? I do not know Greek at all. I have been told that articles are not necessarily used in the Greek where we see them in English, but they have been added by the translators because they are necessary to English grammar. Therefore, the translators chose the article, whether "a" or "the", which they felt most accurately conveys the meaning of the author based upon their understanding of the language, the context of the passage and the whole counsel of God. (This raises the issue of unbelievers serving as translators, but that discussion is for another day.) Here we see both "the" and "a" used as articles within the same passage referring to "woman".

I have heard it said that "the" woman and "the" man used in this passage means that the words are addressed to the marriage relationship, and therefore within the marriage a woman must be taught by the man and learn in silence and that she is not to teach or usurp authority over her husband. But the very last part of the passage says that the woman should "be in silence", which seems like an extreme position, to teach that women should be silent within their relationship with their husbands.

Another way that I have heard this taught is that Paul is talking about public gatherings of the Church and the public behavior or women within the Church. When the Church is gathered and there is teaching, the teaching is done by the men and the women keep silent. When letting scripture interpret scripture we naturally turn to 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, where the context is specifically the public gathering of the Church and Paul said this:

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at a home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.

Obviously Paul could not have been exhorting women in his letter to Timothy to keep silence in the home when he so clearly exhorted them in his letter to the Corinthians to keep silence in the Church and to ask questions of their husbands at home.

Having settled in my mind that the verses are directed to the behavior of women in church, I am led to the question of what it means to be silent and to not be permitted to speak. The type of speaking being described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 14 is prophesying, which is more commonly known as teaching or preaching. It is also called being "under obedience" here. The complementary passage in 1 Timothy 2 calls it teaching and exercising "authority". It is easy to see that the two passages, both written by Paul, agree with each other and bring a common message. I conclude, therefore, that women should not be teaching, prophesying, exercising authority or requiring obedience within the church service.

There is no prohibition against congregational singing or responsive reading or corporate prayers. The teaching, however, is to be done only by men and while they teach the women are to be silent. I don't see any point in devoting an entire paragraph to the word "silent", it means to be silent.

The reader may wonder whether some event or series of events has inspired this post, and the answer is, "yes". No details are necessary, suffice to say that I tire of the distracting exhibitions of women who must show their puffed up knowledge and spiritual superiority by answering every rhetorical question coming from the pulpit and chiming in with "That's right" and "Amen" and "Thank you, Jesus" after every utterance of the speaker. Even worse are the praises of men who ought to know better who encourage these women in their vain and disobedient blatherings. What part of "silent" do you not understand?