The Disclaimer

As I sit in my Philosophy 497 (Seminar: Thomas Aquinas) I randomly, for some reason I will never make sense of, decide to start a blog.  Surely blogs are a great step forward in the development of our society.  A place where we can share thoughts, communicate feelings, learn lemonade recipes.  In the field of ideas and rational thought, a blog has no limits.  As a community of beings in a broken world this blogging idea seems fitting.

Now I use community in its proper sense.  This is not an area to be dependent on.  The internet is not a place to depend on proper truths and axioms that will mold your life and drive forward the ability of human beings to accomplish a great many things in the area of Philosophy, Science, Education, and the like.  However, the internet and its community based mode of abstracting knowledge is a great place to share.  Share is the key concept, not take.  Although we may agree or disagree at times, it is of utter importance that we use both disagreement and agreement to further our knowledge.

That is the real trick isn't it?  We live in a society of total dependence on the big idol known as Government.  Perhaps that should be the underlying presupposition everyone should understand before reading anything on this blog.  We depend, and never stop depending on the idol known as government.  And I wish I could say I did not, but the fact of the matter is that government subsidized student loans reach out and grab my arm with its disgusting hand.

Without further due I would like to extend the offer to partake in civil discussion.  Mostly, there is one rule I wish we all to pertain under:

Shaun's Rule: If the argument results in an individual calling someone an idiot without offering any more substantiate line of rational thought and/or empirical evidence, the argument is officially over and that individual must give up his beliefs and accept the winner's doctrine or construct new material.

Of course, this rule is not novel to any degree.  Its an axiom that remains objectively true throughout human history.

But for any reason, the topic of this blog is politics.  What is politics?  What's the best form of government?  How should government work?  How do politician's behave?

In the traditional sense, this deals mostly with ethics and epistemology.  However, I'm extending the study of political philosophy to the modern 21st century sense of the area of thought.  This means I must include not only Ethics and Epistemology, but also the study of Economics.  The apparent crossroad we have come to in history is how great of a role does politics and government play in the economy.  Of course in a more traditional sense, it shouldn't.  Whatever be the case, in light of today's discussion I am forced to take into account how the economy should work and how government functions within economy.

What is important to understand is that I do believe in God.  And I do believe that perhaps Adam Smith's concept of "an invisible hand" may be the result of God's grace and sovereignty.  Society must be free.  Only a free society is able to come to God at such a rapid pace.  This in turn allows free individuals to share the gospel freely to the world.  Liberation is never through government, a free market, a controlled market, or a government program.  Liberation, J. Budziszewski understood most properly, comes only through understanding that we are fallen and we need God's grace.  So let that be a note of importance as we dive deep into the study of political systems and economic institutions.