Highway Watch

[JasonGoodwin]

Brethren,

I don't know if there is anyone else here on the PB who is a truck driver. I recently attended the Highway Watch seminar that was being presented by my company. The purpose of it is to spot and report terrorist activity. However, there was one part of it which I found really disturbing. It said that every American should be treated as a potential terrorist. That means that I should even treat my brethren in Christ under the same label.

I can at least say that this program is voluntary. I did not have to join, and I don't plan to do so. I am not about to treat any of you guys under the same umbrella. The fact that they advise us to treat every American as a potential terrorist really goes beyond the pale. I'm sure that even under "the best of intentions" they would expect me to use common sense. Then again, politics and common sense are like oil and water -- they don't mix.

To think that we have a metamorphosised form of the KGB reborn in the Department of Homeland Security really angers me!

 

[jfschultz]

Originally posted by JasonGoodwin
Then again, politics and common sense are like oil and water -- they don't mix.

People in politics are uncommon people who avoid anything that even appears to be common, especially common sense!

 

[JasonGoodwin]

FYI, here's a little tie-in to a tangent. KGB, when translated into English, means "Commission for State Security". Now we have the Department of Homeland "Security". Imagine that...

 

[RamistThomist]

No surprise. Logical outworking of recent political stuff.

 

[Anton Bruckner]

guns and books, Jacob. what a combination. to be dangerous with your head and your hands.

[Edited on 9-24-2005 by Slippery]

 

[JasonGoodwin]

Jacob,

I see in your Avatar that you're holding a gun. I pray you don't lose your 2nd Amendment rights because of Uncle Sam/DHS/KGB. Unfortunately, I don't see us keeping our Constitution much longer.

I never thought I would live to see the day when we would lose so many of our Constitutional rights.

 

[Anton Bruckner]

Originally posted by JasonGoodwin
Brethren,


To think that we have a metamorphosised form of the KGB reborn in the Department of Homeland Security really angers me!

Fascism comes in in a subtle manner under the thesis of, "we against them" you better not let your views be heard or else you will be labelled a liberal looney, like your's truly

 

[RamistThomist]

Originally posted by Slippery
guns and books, Jacob. what a combination. to be dangerous with your head and your hands.

[Edited on 9-24-2005 by Slippery]

This does raise an interesting point. Chris Rhoades and I just got back from a theocracy conference advocating powerfully decentralized local government under biblical law. We are on Chalcedon's computers (which is fine). When Hillary Clinton and her commie nazis take over, and knowing Chalcedon's prominence, they will crack their computers and see Chris and my names. Then comes the showdown...

 

[Anton Bruckner]

Originally posted by Draught Horse


This does raise an interesting point. Chris Rhoades and I just got back from a theocracy conference advocating powerfully decentralized local government under biblical law. We are on Chalcedon's computers (which is fine). When Hillary Clinton and her commie nazis take over, and knowing Chalcedon's prominence, they will crack their computers and see Chris and my names. Then comes the showdown...

you guys are really into this theonomist stuff. Well in case things doesn't work out, I will play Bon Jovi's "Down in a blaze of Glory" at the funeral. If there is one thing I know about feminist women from living up here in the North, they are vindicative as ever, so the fight might not go your way.

[Edited on 9-24-2005 by Slippery]

 

[RamistThomist]

I need to clarify one thing...but I have to get my thoghts in order first.

However, theonomy is not defined by overthrowing civil governments. If anything, we stand for the rule of law in society.

 

[RamistThomist]

Dabney's words in The Practical Philosophy say it all:

"The history of human rights, that their intelligent assertors usually learn the true grounds of them "œin the furnace of affliction"; that the posterity who inherit these rights hold them for a while, in pride and ignorant prescription; that after a while, when the true logic of the rights has been forgotten, and when some plausible temptation presses them to do so, the next generation discards the precious rights bodily, and goes back to the practice of old tyranny."

 

[sola_gratia]

I've begun to take an interest in this theonomy stuff myself...

 

[RamistThomist]

On one hand,
I am not worried about the future tyranny of the government. Humanism must die. Humanism has already cut its own throat. As Dr Rushdoony so powerfully stated, "Any society that is built apart from God's law is like a fish out of water: violently active but quickly destined to die."

So, on one hand I have already won. Humanism cannot last long term. Chris Rhoades knows what I am talking about. He has read Heiland. He knows that a society that is predicated upon forced death: Euthanasia and Abortion cannot fight long-term.

 

[Richard King]

Originally posted by JasonGoodwin
Brethren,

I don't know if there is anyone else here on the PB who is a truck driver. I recently attended the Highway Watch seminar that was being presented by my company. The purpose of it is to spot and report terrorist activity. However, there was one part of it which I found really disturbing. It said that every American should be treated as a potential terrorist. That means that I should even treat my brethren in Christ under the same label.

:

Raises very interesting questions doesn't it? I have close Christain brothers who would turn me in because of associations I have made with others. They would do so based on Romans 13. If there were a scenario based on a lie (every American is a potential terrorist) would you feel a duty to God to comply with interrogators or lie to interrogators?

 

[RamistThomist]

Originally posted by Richard King
They would do so based on Romans 13. If there were a scenario based on a lie (every American is a potential terrorist) would you feel a duty to God to comply with interrogators or lie to interrogators?

Neither, I would tell them I don't have to answer. Statist/pluralistic interpretations of Romans 13 have crippled the American church. It prescribes the role of a civil magistrate (kill evildoers; how then does one determine good from evil? Ultimately, the Law of God). Since we are working for a godly social order, we are to obey the government for conscience's sake. So far, so good, says the Reformed statist.

What is conscience's sake? Can you betray your brethren just so that can say you obeyed the law? No, that is a violation of conscience (if it isn't, your problems lie deeper). If the state, let's say, mandates prostitution, would you sell your daughter as a whore? After all, we have to be good statists and obey the Beast. What if The State says something that God's word says otherwise. What do you do? No man can serve two masters!

Well then, what are the means of resistance that you can opt? On one hand, it depends on the scenario. But on the larger scale:

We resist by means of the lesser civil magistrate. This keeps the movement within the bounds of godly restoration. My opponents on PB have never sufficiently answered this point.

Sorry Richard. I took your question and springboarded it. Also, I used "you" in the general sense.

 

[Richard King]

Not a problem Jacob. Springboard away. These matters are extremely important to me. I have often wondered if I have made an idol of freedom.
It very nearly consumes my thinking.
I was told once had my old megachurch that I had a spirit of rebellion.
I want to be held in check so I don't become a hyper-libertarian but I certainly am shocked at how often Romans 13 is used to get out of thinking or being accountable for the freedoms we have been blessed with.

If I were some villain somehow trying to crumble the foundations of this country I think I would simply infiltrate churches with a very submissive message regarding Romans 13 and I would try to get people to let government do the church's job...so churches would have more free time for
fall festivals etc. !

 

[Anton Bruckner]

Originally posted by Draught Horse
Can you betray your brethren just so that can say you obeyed the law? No, that is a violation of conscience (if it isn't, your problems lie deeper).

I think it would be sin to betray your brethren simply to obey the law. Actually it is outright sin to betray the brethren to hold up the law. As Peter said, "We ought to serve God rather than man". But the betrayal of the brethren must be qualified as to what he is being betrayed about. i.e If he is a serial killer, I think its obvious that the brethren must be turned in to the relevant authorities, but as per issues that are clearly in conflict with God's law as committed by the state, we ought not to betray the brethren, and like Rahab, actually assist them.

But as far as it is in our power we ought to obey the laws of the government and live peacefully with all men.

 

[RamistThomist]

Originally posted by Slippery

Originally posted by Draught Horse
Can you betray your brethren just so that can say you obeyed the law? No, that is a violation of conscience (if it isn't, your problems lie deeper).

I think it would be sin to betray your brethren simply to obey the law. Actually it is outright sin to betray the brethren to hold up the law. As Peter said, "We ought to serve God rather than man". But the betrayal of the brethren must be qualified as to what he is being betrayed about. i.e If he is a serial killer, I think its obvious that the brethren must be turned in to the relevant authorities, but as per issues that are clearly in conflict with God's law as committed by the state, we ought not to betray the brethren, and like Rahab, actually assist them.

But as far as it is in our power we ought to obey the laws of the government and live peacefully with all men.

Sure, I meant brethren in the explicitly Christian sense and with the understanding that they were innocent before the law.

 

[JasonGoodwin]

Brethren,

I admit that it can be easy to slip into a trap of extremism and isolationism. There have been times where I felt like I've done the same thing. I most certainly agree with Jacob that Humanism must (and will) die. It can last only so long, but there is no telling by our finite estimation when it will expire.

By no means do I advocate the overthrowing of the US Government. As far out of touch as the powers that be are with its citizens, that does not mean that no good can come out of it. "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28).

Even if the politicians cannot exert any sort of common sense, we know that we should. I would not, under any knowing circumstance, report on a brother in Christ. Come to think of it, I would not know of any genuine brother in Christ who would commit treasonous actions against his country. (Sisters, don't think I'm leaving you out of this.) Thus, I would report on suspicious activity, but I would not want to become an agent of the DHS who exercises such heavy-handed tactics which came from the Stasi and/or the KGB.

Here is something else to chew on: Junius Brutus (aka Hubert Languet) wrote in his book A Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants, basically said that the Prince is actually subject to his people, not the other way around. Something else to think about as well: tyrants not only bring in strange (foreign) troops onto his land, but he also disarms the people.