David Alan Carmichael lives without a social security number, and his children were reared without them. He just says no. He defeated the U.S. Navy in its refusal to accommodate his religious beliefs, a conflict that led to that branch’s unlawfully giving him the boot.
By David Tulis
Chattanoogans may well be deserving of the modern state and its great self-extension into every area of life. They vote. They pay taxes voluntarily. They yield constitutional rights. Much of what they do is tacitly supported by professional opinion and the “normal way we do things” at the Chamber of Commerce or at LaunchTN. Their voluntary spirit of compliance is, let’s grant, under their free will. But it is a free will gently nudged to the side by media and casual conversation with people who follow the establishment paradigm.
If we are not a free people under a free constitutional government, it is because we’ve become confused by our own cupidity, our own desires, our covetings and lusts. We believe official narratives because we are guilty, and we are liable to become subservient to avoid being found out.
‘Getting it on’ or ‘Just saying no’
A simple way of getting at the confusion is a matter of spelling a two-lettered word. It contains a consonant and a vowel. The word is either on or no.
The word that is most enforcing of liberty is no. Say no. Say no to subsidies and subventions. Say no to bluff. Say no to demands to search your house or your car absent a warrant. So no to a DEA request to masquerade as you in your online avatar.
We get the word backwards. We have the word on. We are moving on. Getting on. Marching on. Progressing onward. Getting along.
Let’s turn the letters around, but the hard consonant first and the soft vowel second.
Saying no
Liberty in the biblical conception is freedom from. Liberty is not created by the king or the state. It exists in a space that God gives to mankind and to each person individually. With that liberty each person has a duty to repent of his sins and exercise the process of sanctification, or holiness. Every person has a duty to God and a duty to his family and progeny to prosper himself and other people in the free market.
Liberty is freedom from compulsion and force. Liberty means that the civil magistrate’s sword is kept in the scabbard until a capital offense requires punishment or lawlessness suppressed.
Liberty as a Christian conception solves the problem of the one and the many. The group/collective/people/nation vs. the individual/family/locale/tribe. Only the gospel solves this human problem created by the fall of Adam, according to R.J. Rushdoony in his capital study, The One and The Many.
