I recommend you use any free time you have during the holiday season to read this essay: “Secular Theocracy : The Foundations and Folly of Modern Tyranny” (December 19, 2011). It’s by David Theroux, founder of the libertarian Independent Institute. I think many of Theroux’s positions are wrong and and even dangerous but he is always well worth reading. In this particular essay, Theroux tries to establish that libertarianism has Christian roots. I sure hope not although I recognize the validity of my friend Rodney Stark’s argument to the effect that political systems that favor individual freedom have a historical affinity with Christianity.
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“Christian roots” are not necessarily bad, but I wonder if it is not more nearly correct to say there are “Christian similarities.”
For example, we libertarians agree with “Thou shalt not steal” and with “Thou shalt not commit murder.
And we accept “Thou shalt not covet,” if “covet” means you will use force and/or fraud to acquire the property of others.
The rules that Jesus posited in Matthew, “Love God” and “Love others” are, of course, questionable if one does not believe in a concept of “God,” whatever that might mean to any individual.
But loving other people, loving them to the extent that one will never initiate force or fraud against them, is a very libertarian proposition.
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