State Control

"'Relativism' is the view that every belief on a certain topic, or perhaps about any topic, is as good as every other. No one holds this view."
Richard Rorty

A humorous and thought provoking quote, to be sure.

There are others, but let’s think about this one for now. ‘Every belief is as good as every other’. It sounds like modern Christian America, and that feels comfortable.

No one really holds this view. Richard Rorty is right. People tend to stick with their own beliefs, and they hold, share, amplify and validate those beliefs, even in the face of reality.

Put another way, we hold strong convictions, although we might not express them openly. In our social settings we express our beliefs in a variety of ways: conversations with friends, individual choices such as which books we read or TV shows we watch. These choices are personal, normally made out of habit and certainly not controversial.

Choice is something that most of us take for granted. We chose to buy a certain product, or support a certain candidate or cause based on a belief we hold. We come to hold these beliefs based on a mix personal experience, recommendations of respected friends and, occasionally, the deep desire to go along with our peers.

It’s easy to make a choice or hold a viewpoint when you are surrounded by those who share your values, viewpoints and background. It’s easy to agree when those around you are in agreement.



It’s all relative. To the farm family struggling to make ends meet, crop set aside programs are a blessing. To a school teacher in Chicago they are an unfair subsidy that drains tax revenue from bringing their salaries into line with their peers. The real estate developer sees a tract of land as a way to profit and raise the local tax base, supporting the local community. The application of the principle of eminent domain, or the forced sale of that property, robs a local citizen of land that had been held in their family for generations. State and federal governments enact laws to secure liberty, and occasionally those laws have the unintended effect of denying freedoms to citizens.

That’s the rub. We try to do good things by making choices based on what we think is right. The trouble is we usually offend someone when choosing, because the very act of making a choice of one thing over another leaves one side empty handed. We choose to support farmers through crop set-aside programs, and in doing so we create the effect (unintended or not) of taking money from a school-teacher’s salary. We choose to support the development of a golf course and children’s park and thereby deny a family’s legacy. The constitution’s separation clause keeps our religious life free of interference, or worse, by our elected leaders.

So why is it ok to control smoking? Or limit the intake of transfats in our diet? Or regulate driving habits?

These are all contentious issues, to be sure. Let’s include abortion, public school curricula, bedroom legislation, treasonous speech, and others. Religion could be included in the group, as could the social clubs you belong to, the people you associate with, and the very things you say in public.

But wait. Somewhere in the back of your mind a little bell just rang. Religion? Opinion? State? Association? Speech? Property? Liberty? Didn’t we already deal with these issues in high school civics class?

Right. We talked about the Constitution, freedoms, styles of government. We talked about funny Latin words like habeus corpus, caveat emptor, credit mobilier, laissez faire and a lot of other things that most of us probable forgot, or, more aptly put, trusted to the care of those whom we have elected. Shoot, we could even include the electoral process and representation in our little list of concepts that make up our society.

The trouble is we have moved away from civil and democratic representation. Remember when we were taught that the ‘majority rules’? Remember when civil disobedience was loosely defined as standing on a street corner with a sign supporting this or that cause? Perhaps the extreme example in that not-so-distant American past was the occasional activist Catholic priest being arrested in front of an abortion clinic.

Not now. Now we have major news networks selling opinion (usually biased and politicized) as fact. Senators and other elected officials engaged in televised shouting matches; an animal rights group justifying the destruction of a legal business because they had the audacity to correctly function as a business in an openly capitalist society completely within the law.

Isolated examples? Not really. You see it is indeed relative, more so now than ever. The news organizations serve their viewers’ interests with what sells; politicians serve their constituencies a steady diet of what they want to say, not what must be said. And national organizations in their attempt at political change commit no less than treason, libeling one of America’s finest in one of the most visible flagship newspapers in the nation, if not the world.

And it all goes largely un-noticed. After my home church in Iowa went through doctrinal turmoil last year I took some time to reflect on what had happened to them. The very short version is that the rank and file (read: quiet, non-confrontational, etc…) were usurped. The pastoral team led a small but vocal group into territory far outside Disciple doctrine, pushing a literal biblical interpretation; a black-and-white view of a normally grey and confusing world. It reminded me of Orwell’s work Animal Farm. Here is a little of that story, with apologies to George:

I like Orwell. I like him because he told us about all of this a hundred years ago. Remember ‘1984’? No? How about ‘Animal Farm’? Let’s talk about that one. The farmer dies, or moves to Florida, or whatever, and the farm is left on it’s own. So the animals begin to starve. And that adversity forces them to all pull together, planting crops, gathering firewood, fetching water. All the animals on the farm, a socialist paradise, producing, providing, living, loving. All of the animals except for the pigs.

See, the pigs were smart. Or they thought so anyway. It doesn’t matter, because this already happened, and now they have killed all of us and our dreams and besides, it’s better because they know best. But let me tell my story, because I have a little time to kill before I go.


And here we see finally the term ‘insipid’ used in it’s fullest and most vile sense. An evil change, slowly wrought from the inside, not unlike the decay of painted wood. One poke and the whole thing collapses. It is this insipid, unseen change in our daily lives, from school boards through local and state governments, and finally federalized, ratified in code and quietly forced on we, the royal we, the voters. We, the people. The ones who believe in the rule of the majority. The majority of whom fail to speak up, fail to fall in, fail to correct behavior and most egregiously fail to vote.

At this point I can’t remember if this article is about apathy, pigs or politics. But somehow all three are linked. You see, the topic of this rant is ‘state control of private gun ownership from a Christian perspective’. Bull.

Bull. It’s about state control of anything. Of you, of your children, of the way you drive, what you eat, how you behave and yes, whether or not you choose life, choose to wait, or even choose to own a gun.

It’s about apathy, and the vacuum we create when we choose to remain silent; the vacuum that is filled by activist groups who resort to slander and libel, intimidation, coercion and even violence. It’s about network television hosts who routinely engage in shouting matches with their ‘guests’. It’s about surrendering your life to work, your livelihood to taxation, your liberty to the ‘rights’ of the perceived victims.

It’s about polarity. The unpleasant reality that in our universe, functioning like the great jeweled movement of a galactic Rolex watch, ticking away the seconds of our lives according to fixed, non-relative natural laws. It’s about black and white, right and wrong. About winners and losers (yes, there are losers).

It’s also about those who choose to do the right thing. It’s about not surrendering your viewpoint, even in the face of bullies who stoop to violence. It’s about abstract concepts like liberty, fraternity and equality. About realizing that shouting doesn’t solve the problem.

Most importantly, it’s about the realization that each time we choose to reduce the freedoms and liberties of a group with which we don’t particularly agree, the door is open for the same to happen to us. The door opens for that same ubiquitous State to continue the erosion of our rights, the infringement by regulation and through bureaucratic fiat of our own cherished freedoms.

So anyway, the pigs were smarter. It was the pigs who came up with the idea that we should have a plan, a common goal uniting us in the struggle. So they talked, and we listened. They talked some more and we sat there and took it. We took them seriously as they took away our lives, one rule at a time. At night. While we were sleeping.

I will not quote scripture. I will not cite crime-reduction statistics to support or defend my views.
I simply believe in my heart that state control of gun ownership is wrong. I also believe that the majority rules in this country. I believe in the value of hard work, ethical behavior, and yes, the rights of all of us to drive to work, to play sports, talk on the phone, worship in the church of our choice (or, more importantly, not), go waterskiing and even own guns.

Because I believe instead in personal accountability, in the power of restraint, in the personal shame of guilt for those who choose to harm another person with a fist, a knife or even a gun. And I know in my gut that as much as we want to assign the guilt to the weapon, it is only truly assignable to the sinner, for only the sinner can ask and receive forgiveness for the sin.

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Guns and the State

I own several weapons. Many of my friends do, too. And we shoot them, and we don’t kill people with them. At least not good people.

There is a difference between good people and bad people; there is a difference between good and bad. There is a difference between love and hate, hot and cold, love and passion, peace and violence. It is that difference manifested through the action or non-action of individuals using judgment that keeps our society and others one step ahead of Darwin.

One step ahead. Think about that. We are all barely one generation away from extinction. Do you remember how to live entirely from your garden? Could you do it? What about making ice? Not the stuff of survival but (in my case, at least) certainly the stuff of civility.

Hmm. Civility. I like to think I’m part of that crowd. I like to think I have grown into someone who can exercise good judgment over weighty matters and arrive at an equitable decision. I pay my taxes (grudgingly), drive within the speed limit, support charity and church with time and tithe and contribute to the national defense with service. I am civil, normally, and as a citizen I demand the same behavior from my countrymen.

In the Boy Scouts I learned to be trustworthy, helpful and ten other good things, as did my friends. In high school civics class (there’s that word again) I learned how the Greeks and Romans founded cultures and schools of thought which carry through to this day in the most basic principles of government: equality before the law, separation of powers, representation and other concepts. My taxes and yours support that government and we have the nearly unique privilege of being able to ‘throw the bums out’ when the don’t live up to our expectations.

College taught me a lot of things, some not so great, but for the most part useful. I remember being told by many that I should choose a good solid technical major like accounting or engineering, in order to better make it in the world. I’m glad I didn’t, for many reasons.

I remember in college sitting in a huge auditorium taking a class you may remember: introduction to humanities. The professor was likely an agnostic; he stood before us and deconstructed the story of the Good Samaritan and trashed the Ten Commandments in favor of the twelve points of the Scout Law. His class left me confused and doubting not just the church but academia as well.

There were many times during and after my college years that I was tested. The army did it physically; sometimes I did ok, sometimes not. But there was always another test. Experiences over several decades have taught me some things a well. Buy low, sell high. Don’t take any wooden nickels; keep a positive attitude; trust, but verify.

Tim Wilson taught me that. Trust, but verify. At first I just chalked it up to the fact that he was, on the surface, a priggish Brit officer with a perceived general contempt for Americans. That was not the case. On more than one occasion Tim’s philosophy kept me alive, literally.

I own several weapons. Many of my friends do. Tim owned one and so did I in Baghdad. We were in a nice hotel in 2003 and attending a birthday dinner with Chinese food, in Iraq, of all places. The food was great. We had highly paid bodyguards throughout the hotel and between several of us only one pistol. I was trusting, but I had not learned to verify.

After the shooting was over the score was good guys twelve, bad guys zero. Tim and I had not fired a shot, but we had indeed drained the color from our faces and the scotch from the bottle, hiding out with our co-workers in the bathroom during the firefight. It turned out that the twelve dead guys were insurgents disguised as Iraqi policemen, and they had been paid to hit the hotel and attempt to take all of us hostage. Nice. In Iraq hostages either are killed right away or tortured with things like cordless drills and electrical current until they die under duress. So it’s good that we had our bodyguards that day.

Of course we had faith. We had faith in the security of our hotel, in the Coalition’s control of Baghdad; in our various God’s. What we lacked was awareness; premonition, control. We lacked verification; we lacked guns.

Our faith let us down. Our faith set us up for our own personal ‘night of the long knives’; for meeting the toothed edge of the meat saw with our exposed necks, staring at the ground as it soaked up our blood until we lost our final physical control and passed away to that house not made with hands.

We lacked verification. We did not feel safe. In that small bathroom, stacked into the tiled shower and tub and porcelain stool we most certainly wanted a very big, bad gun. Several of them, as a matter of fact.

Why is this important to you? Let me explain my jaded point of view. There were eight PSD (personal security detail) personnel guarding us. And fifteen (15!!!) Kurdish Pesh merga soldiers stationed throughout the hotel and on the rood. And all of them, and all their training, guns and bullets meant absolutely nothing when Tim and I were behind the bathroom door wondering if it would be kicked in by someone who meant to kill us.

Unless you have been there, done that and paid for the t-shirt in blood this is something that I cannot make you understand. But you need to understand it, desperately.

You need to understand that it’s ok. It’s ok to be a little suspicious of the new neighbors down the street; it’s ok to wonder why your coworkers are taking home laptops loaded with data. It’s ok to check your bank balance every once in a while just because you want to feel safe. It’s ok to talk to your kids about drugs and it’s ok to lock all the doors and windows in your house at night in Anytown, USA.

And it’s ok to own a gun. You see, you can be trustworthy; you can be trusting. And you can be careful, responsible, and safe. You can trust, but verify. Tim was right. Verification is not doubt, it is a responsible act performed by those in charge of themselves and others in the process of ensuring their safety.

It’s ok to have faith and own a weapon. You want biblical citations? Peter was lauded for carrying a sword. Jesus asked His disciples (you…) to sell their cloaks and purchase arms. It’s ok.

Faith is not blind. God gave us five senses (and maybe others) to use. He gave us intuition, gut instinct, feeling, and yes, judgment. He also gave us talent and resources to construct houses and apartments, office buildings, cars and keys and locks and peep holes and even guns.

Tim Wilson was right. Trust but verify. When someone knocks on you door you and trust, to be sure, that they don’t want to kill you. But usually you look through the peep hole to see who it is; usually you say something like ‘who’s there?’ to the mailman.

Usually.

We are only one step ahead of Darwin. Only one step ahead of chaos, anarchy, animal skin underwear and illiterate, grunting procreation. Think about it. Think about the things you normally tune-out on television. Pedophiles, murderers, insurgents, politicians. How much farther would they all have to push to bring us to the brink? How much food is in your house? How much gasoline in your car? Are you duly and truly prepared? Because I know that you (all of us) are not as well-informed as we think.

I remember a TV commercial from the ‘80’s (the seventies were a blur to me; but I digress…), about a particular line of clothing: “Do you know what you’re wearing tomorrow?’ I do. I’m not sure many others do, however. I’m not sure that other fellow Christians are ready to abandon their creamy-white trusting lifestyles for what is in front of all of us.

Do you know what lurks behind the door of our civilization? Do you know the goals of your adversaries? Do you know who they are? Do you even know your neighbor?

Trust, but verify.

It’s ok to doubt. Doubt, acted on, is awareness. Awareness builds faith through the knowledge that we are not all alike, we do not all wish good on our fellow man. That there is indeed evil in the world. Doubt engages the curious in a quest for truth, and sometimes you don’t get the right answer. Because Satan walks in this world, and God tests us. He tests our judgment. He tests our will, and our faith. He asks and demands for verification.

Tim Wilson was right. Trust.

It’s ok to own a gun. It’s ok to trust.

And it’s just good practice to verify.

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