Nathanael D Snow

This promises to be worthwhile:

I’d rather the church were stuck in the issues of theology, practice, and practice than out and out paganism and Gnosticism, which is where we are today. Salvation is a union between God and man, the church is a covenant relationship among believers under the blood of Christ. It gives every believer a claim on his brother via their personal relationships with Christ. I believe you know a great deal about the Scriptures, I , too, am a student of the Book, and a seeker of truth. I also believe in faith and practice, lave and trust, but I ‘m not sure what you mean by these terms, or what your point is. It is about the end result: that Christ be glorified, not that we love and are loved. The love is mercy, and adds to His glory. I could go all-out Piper here, but I’ll stop. It’s not so much that I “trust” the private sphere. I recognize the self-interestedness of man, and that the market system best takes advantage of this quality and turns it to the most ...

P and I go back and forth on the God's Politics blog: Him: (In this P is "Me" and I am "You", a little hard to follow, but you get it. Nathan(a)el said: I have no quarrel with this form of government. I don't believe it requires central organization, but it is clearly Biblical. It does not, however, assign to the state the responsibility of caring for the least of these. Rather than calling this a "good" which the state performs, I prefer to look at it as a "harm" which it prevents. Me: You can call it whatever you like because you are still ignoring other aspects of the old testament law where the state was assigned the duty to feed the people. Take for instance the laying aside of parts of land, they were untilled so that strangers could pick their share and eat. That came from God to a centralized unified Israelite government where each tribe was called to set aside land for food usage. That's still governmental welfare for a se...

There's a bitty discussion between Payshun and I over at God's Politics. Chris Meyers Asch advocates the liberal Christan support of a new Service Academy . I think its a bad idea: I also doubt the usefulness of a PSA. 1. Many public universities already offer similar programs. 2. It is unclear to me what the specific set of skills necessary for effective public administration and service are. If I were to take a guess, they would include: Follow orders. Follow regulations. Cover yourself. Blackmail. Evade feedback. Courtesianship and confucianism are not modes of behavior we want to encourage in our institutions. 3. The Christian element here is fuzzy. Why should Christians support the creation of an institution which absolves individuals of more responsibility by creating a new "priestly" class of bureaucrats to handle the "least of these" for us? I should think that Christians would further strengthen their support for Christian universities which...

Why has immigration become more of a problem in the last few decades? I would argue that some of it, at least, has to do with increased wealth among those who would emigrate. It is not easy to drop the few possessions and relationships you have to embark on a journey to an unknown land far away in hopes of a better life. The least mobile are always the most poor. We see this to be the case at all levels. Within our cities, the middle class are infinitely better placed for upward mobility than anyone on welfare. In accord with my thesis, they are also more likely to take a new job in another locale. Often new employers help to pay for such a move. A potential employee has to promise a marginal productivity equivalent to the combined compensation of wages and moving costs. The more productive the individual the more sought after they become in the jobs market, and the more likely they will move. Mexican immigrants promise a high level of marginal productivity to thos...

Check out this dude. He's CEO of his own company at 19, and very successful. Tell me kids shouldn't be working...

I was looking at this map , when I decided to play with some numbers. If you placed 40 people per acre (an acre is a little smaller than an American football field) then you could fit the entire population of the world inside of Texas. Malthus was wrong.

Russ Roberts, author of The Choice, a story which helps readers to understand Comparative Advantage has an online radio show, EconTalk . Today he interviews Bryan Caplan, author of Myth of The Rational Voter, and recent speaker at an IHS conference I attended. Bryan, having a great exposure to and understanding of the Austrian School of Economics I have great sympathies towards, persuaded me to reconsider buying into the Austrian story wholesale. Here's Robert's blog plug with link to the interview due to broadcast June 25.

Greg Mankiw discusses The Limits of Pigou. What consists of a nuisance which can be considered encroachment, and what is merely bad taste to be ignored? or as he put it: " When does correcting externalities start to offend principles of liberty?" My response: A line seems clearly to be drawn at whether the externality is ignorable or not. But how to deal with the nuisance is a more interesting question. Why employ the state and empower it when individuals can assume responsibility themselves? If your neighbor presents a nuisance, they should be confronted, personally, and tactfully. Allow the Coase proposition to work. Make a deal. Initiate a transaction whereby gains from trade might be captured, and contracts might be established so that property rights are reinforced. By introducing coercion and employing the state we make the assumption that the state ultimately owns all the property and we forfeit our sovereignty. Bad idea. Apply the golden rule.

I got a letter today from Rudi Gulianni. Came through the Jerusalem Post. He wants me to send him money since he's such a good friend of Israel. I like the J-Post. They have some good columnists, and I'm interested in Rabbinical teaching, which they link to. But I gave up Zionism a few years ago. It was a gradual process, but it is inextricable tied to my beliefs about the state. You see, I ardently believe the Scripture where God tells Abraham, "I will bless those that bless you and curse those that curse you," regarding the Jews. I believe the Holocaust was a heinous crime, and that it did occur. But I don't believe God ever intended for there to be a strong centralized state called "Israel." I don't believe Jews were justified in taking land from Palestinians by force in the war which created the nation-State. I think Christians are wrong to support the state of Israel, just as they are wrong to support the United States Government. We ha...

I have heard many recent stories about poor service on airlines lately. I was just at the IHS conference and there was a whole list of horror stories resulting from participant's travel problems. If 10% of travelers are having nightmarish experiences there must be some explanation. Here's the one I offered to my fellow IHS friends: The airlines have appealed more and more to the Federal Government for assistance over the last few years, and this is the kind of service we get. They are insulated from customers because they have artificially low prices due to subsidies. So they poo-poo on us, and we take it, along with the cheap rates. Question: do we prefer the cheap rates, or would we rather have higher quality service? In other words: How much more would you pay to insure a seat on the flight you planned to take with a guarantee that your luggage and belongings will be there waiting for you when you get to your destination unharmed? Does the state have a responsibility to in...

Hello, Jonah Well, hello, Jonah! And - whaddya' know? - I see Geppetto and Pinnochio! It's gettin' crowded, from head to tail. Guess we're all livin' in the belly of the whale. At least it's cozy, and nice and warm. And it gives us shelter from the ragin' storm, N' though I smell trouble, I can say at least, I'm not deeper in the belly of the beast. Refrain: We stumble through this world of darkness, pain and doubt We suffer in this prison, we struggle to get out. With strivin' strength, and study, we might finally find a way. To flee this night and reach the light of day. Verse 2: Hey, now, Gepetto, what's that you've got? As ideas go - hah! - I'd say that's hot. Count me in! I like you're plan, To burn the belly of leviathan Thank you, Jonah, I liked your prayer. But will you now please get over here. You've got to labor, and not just wish. To get out of the belly of the fish. Verse 3: Hurray, brothers! We're fina...

"if we all accept that, then we have to allow that a competent pragmatism might look very different from National Socialism." Exactly, but Mises proved long ago that central planning is always inept. It can never be practical to everyone, it can only be practical to the one making the decision, who is operating without the necessary information. No one can have all the necessary information because it is always changing and it is tied up in all of the various individuals in the society. This is Hayek's argument in The Use of Knowledge in Society. (I'm actually NOT that big a fan of Hayek's, I've just been reading him lately for a conference...) "It has always been understood that applying natural law leads toward a harmonious and prosperous society. That is to say, natural law is pragmatic." Agreed, but the argument presented to me had the direction of causality reversed. It does not flow both ways in the short run. It might in the long run, if chang...

Pragmatism, aka fascism, has as its philosophy "Do whatever seems necessary." Hitler did this, and kept doing it, and kept doing it, until he was a totalitarian dictator, democratically elected. If we do not step outside of what seems necessary and focus on natural rights and incentives, theory, we will make the same mistakes. This was Hayek's argument in The Road To Serfdom, and he was right. As believers we do not practice our ethic because it is practical. We do not abstain from fornication or adultery because it is practical. It is anything but. We do so because we have adopted a peculiar ethic in imitation of Christ. No other reason. Sometimes there are fair consequences for following Christ, sometimes there are dire consequences, according to His decree. We do not look at the consequences, we look at the command to follow Him. The world has no rational ethical imperative for caring for the poor. Some people are altruistic, but this is merely a residual of the imago ...