God is a Capitalist

by Roger McKinney

  When God tired of Israel’s rebellion, he sent the Babylonian army under Nebuchadnezzar to destroy Jerusalem with the temple and deport most Israelis to Babylon. God encouraged them to live peaceful lives there and pay taxes to the state, one of the most ruthless in history. Here is the passage from Jeremiah 29:4-11:

  Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who were carried away captive, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters – that you may be increased there, and not diminished. And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the LORD for it; for in its peace you will have peace.

  Then God placed several Israelis in prominent political positions within the state. Daniel, one of the greatest prophets, served as a minister under Nebuchadnezzar, his son and Cyrus in the Persian kingdom. Esther married the Persian emperor and rescued Jews in Babylon from genocide. In the first century, Israelis lived under the brutal Roman boot and Jesus encouraged his followers to pay taxes to Rome (Matthew 17:27, Mark 12:17). Later, the Apostle Paul encouraged Christians to pay taxes (Romans 13:6).

  So while Christians live in predominantly non-Christian societies, we will suffer the same oppression that others suffer from the existence of a powerful state, but we should still follow the laws, respect the authorities and pay taxes as long as the state does not require us to violate Biblical principles. And although the state is God’s wrath against rebellious people, God mixes mercy with all of his judgments and uses the state to suppress the criminals that afflict society and thereby establish a kind of peace. So Christians cannot consider the state to be inherently evil as libertarians do.

  If Christians achieve a majority in any society, then they are free to establish a state-less, Torah-like, government and God would bless it. First the Dutch Republic then England and the United States came very close to achieving that for about two centuries each. But as each nation rebelled against traditional Christianity, the citizens demanded a “king,” or a more powerful state like the nations around them and each became increasingly socialist.

  Libertarians should understand that a libertarian society can exist only as long as the majority of citizens subscribe to libertarian principles. But the only instances in history in which the majority of people in a country followed libertarian principles were when they were Christians. Quite a few libertarians are atheists, but most atheists are hard-core socialists. As Hayek demonstrated, atheism gave birth to socialism. The two are natural companions.

  Immigration

  Illegal immigration terrifies many conservatives, many of whom think it will destroy the nation. The issue has become the defining policy of the Tea Party movement, which wants to build a Great Wall of China on the southern border of the U.S. to keep out the hordes, or its modern version, the fence and wall that separates Israel from the West Bank. Any potential candidate for the Presidency in 2015 had to impugn illegal immigration loudly and often or he had no chance of wooing the conservative vote.

  Of course the Tea Party and its groupies do not oppose legal immigration. Tea Partiers obey the laws of the land and expect others to do the same. There is an element of the slippery slope argument in their opposition to illegal immigration: it violates U.S. laws and runs the risk of instigating greater anarchy. Then there is the fear that illegal immigrants are either taking jobs that citizens might work or are reducing wages below what workers would earn without massive illegal immigration. And many conservatives fear that illegal immigrants bring crime with them as well as burden schools, medical facilities and the welfare rolls. All of the objections to illegal immigration are true, but they are only half true and half-truths are the worst kind of lies. Before we untangle the threads we need to ask, what does the Bible say about immigration? Many Tea Partiers are Christian and know the relevant verses well:

  “You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt,” (Exodus 22:21). “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God,” (Leviticus 19:33,34). “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and for the alien: I am the Lord your God,” (Leviticus 23:22). “You shall have one law for the alien and for the citizen: for I am the Lord your God,” (Leviticus 24:22). “Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt,” (Deuteronomy 10:19). “When you beat your olive trees, do not strip what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow. When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not glean what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow,” (Deuteronomy 24:20, 21). “Cursed be anyone who deprives the alien, the orphan, and the widow of justice,” (Deuteronomy 27:19).

  In summary, God requires in the Torah that Israelis treat foreigners in their midst well, almost as if they were Israelis. Of course, foreigners could become Israelis simply by rejecting false gods and having their males circumcised. Caleb and his extended family, the Kennites, were such converts and were given a portion of the land as if they had been born Hebrew. God reminds the Israelis that they had been foreigners in a strange land and knew abuse at the hands of the locals. What principles can we distill from such a small amount of evidence?

  If God had wanted to restrict immigration into Israel he would have done so. He does not mention it. He assumes that foreigners will come into the land looking for economic opportunities or to unite in the worship of the true God instead of idols. He makes no distinction between legal or illegal foreigners in the land, but treats them all the same. In the same way that the U.S. Constitution gives the federal government only designated powers, God does not give Israel the authority to limit immigration.

  The Bible has more to say on immigration than just what is in the law. Equally important are the many episodes in which servants of God became foreigners in another land as they fled famine, war or persecution. Abraham left Ur for the land of Canaan because of the religious corruption in his birthplace. He immigrated to Egypt during famines, as did Jacob. Moses retreated to the Sinai after killing an Egyptian. Ruth and Naomi migrated to Israel in order to survive. Joseph fled with Jesus and Mary to Egypt to escape Herod’s mass murder of baby boys. In the book of Acts, Christians left Israel for other parts of the Roman Empire to escape Jewish persecution. Christians fled the Roman destruction of Jerusalem for safety in Pella. Throughout history, persecuted Christians have fled to foreign countries, especially during the long dark night of the reign of Islam. The principle we can derive from these examples is that God often provides a safe haven for people when tyrants become unbearable and rescues them by having them migrate. It seems that God wants people to be free to escape from hardships, famine and persecution to the sanctuaries he created. We might consider it a natural right.

  God has made the U.S. a world sanctuary. Have we forgotten the words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty? Most immigrants have come for religious freedom or economic opportunity, much as the foreign immigrants to Israel did. Lately, the U.S. “war” on drugs has driven many in Central America to the north. General John F. Kelly, commander of U.S. Southern Command in Miami, wrote the following in “Central America drug war a dire threat to U.S. national security” in 2014:

  Drug cartels and associated street gang activity in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, which respectively have the world’s number one, four and five highest homicide rates, have left near-broken societies in their wake...

  All this corruption and violence is directly or indirectly due to the insatiable U.S. demand for drugs, particularly cocaine, her
oin and now methamphetamines, all produced in Latin America and smuggled into the U.S. along an incredibly efficient network along which anything — hundreds of tons of drugs, people, terrorists, potentially weapons of mass destruction or children — can travel so long as they can pay the fare...

  More to the point, however, it has been the malignant effects of immense drug trafficking through these nonconsumer nations that is responsible for accelerating the breakdown in their national institutions of human rights, law enforcement, courts, and eventually their entire society as evidenced today by the flow of children north and out of the conflictive transit zone. The human rights groups I deal with tell me young women and even the little girls sent north by hopeful parents are molested and raped by traffickers. Many in these same age groups join the 17,500 the U.N. reports come into the U.S. every year to work in the sex trade.

  Conservatives are willingly blind to the vast destruction that the war on drugs is causing south of our border. Trillions of dollars spent trying to stop the flow of drugs has accomplished nothing but to so enrich the drug cartels that they can corrupt and take over large sections of entire nations. Much of the recent immigration comes from families trying to escape the violence that the drug cartels introduce as a result of their providing the drugs to quench the cravings of Americans. While the war devastates whole nations in Latin America, it has not succeeded in making it the least bit difficult for Americans to get any drugs they want. Drug legalization would take away the vast revenues of the drug cartels and help end their crime spree across the south. In turn, that would reduce illegal immigration. But conservatives neither want to legalize drugs nor face the devastating consequences on others of their irrational fight against drugs.

  Finally, from the Biblical perspective, Christians need to remember the second of the two great commandments: Love your neighbor as yourself, or do unto others as you would have them do unto you. All people living in the U.S. came from somewhere else. Even the tribes came from China at one point, but all citizens of European descent are much more recent immigrants. Those who subscribe to traditional Christianity are a minority in the U.S. and may face persecution just as most fellow Christians in Muslim and Hindu nations suffer. Fleeing to a safer place may be our only option. Let us hope one exists that will accept us.

  Again, conservatives do not oppose legal immigration, only illegal immigration. They are for law and order, sometimes referred to as the “rule of law.” But two kinds of law exist – God’s laws and manmade laws. God’s laws, revealed in the Bible, never change and apply equally to everyone for all time. Manmade law, whether coming from pharaohs, Caesars, kings, parliaments or congresses, is arbitrary and capricious. Laws coming from a congress in a democracy are just as manmade and as arbitrary as those coming from a dictator or king. There is nothing sacred or holy about them. Many things that are legal today may be illegal tomorrow and vice versa. For example, President Reagan converted millions of people who were considered illegal immigrants one day into legal residents with the stroke of a pen. Things that were illegal for centuries, such as divorce or same-sex marriage, can suddenly be made legal. Manmade law does not have the authority of God’s law, at least for Christians and Jews, and it has even less authority if it contradicts God’s laws, as immigration restrictions do.

  The great economist Bruno Leoni wrote in his book, Freedom and Law, about the weaknesses in manmade law: “History evidences the fact that legislation does not constitute an appropriate alternative to arbitrariness, but that it often ranks alongside the vexatious orders of tyrants or of arrogant majorities against all kinds of spontaneous processes of forming a common will...From the point of view of the supporters of individual freedom it is not only a question of being suspicious of officials and rulers, but also of legislators.”

  So one must ask who gave Congress the authority to make the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants? The Bible does not give anyone that authority. It is not part of God’s law. Of course, conservatives might quote Romans chapter 13 about obeying the laws of the land, but who gave rulers the authority to invent laws that God did not legislate and even oppose God’s intent of providing sanctuaries for oppressed people?

  In the same way that manmade law must be subordinate to God’s laws, legislation passed by Congress must follow the supreme manmade law of the U.S., the Constitution, which does not give Congress the power to restrict immigration. Article one, section eight says this on the issue: “The Congress shall have Power To...establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;” It gives Congress the authority to determine criteria for citizenship, but says nothing about immigration. Conservatives are supposed to hold to originalism in interpreting the Constitution and they do so when it is convenient. The document clearly states that any power not spelled out in the Constitution is forbidden to the federal government and reserved for the states. But conservatives fall back on Supreme Court decisions regarding immigration that violate the principle of originalism. Of course, if the only legitimate interpretation of the Constitution is found through originalism, then almost all laws passed since George Washington left office are illegitimate because they violate the prime law of the land. Congressmen, presidents and Supreme Court justices who approved those laws are the greatest criminals in the history of the nation.

  The Apostles Peter and Paul admonish Christians to follow the legislation of the land as long as it does not contradict God’s laws and U.S. immigration laws come very close to violating God’s intent to provide safe havens for oppressed people. Conservatives are very upset with “sanctuary” cities, such as San Francisco, that ignore federal immigration laws. But those cities are merely responding to what are clearly unconstitutional and illegitimate laws.

  But the U.S. is a sovereign nation and sovereign nations have the right to control their borders, many conservatives assert. However, the U.S. is sovereign only with respect to other nations; its sovereignty ends where God’s begins. Christians need to be concerned that legislation does not violate God’s laws or principles. At the same time, legislators need to obey the law in the Constitution when passing their own laws.

  What about the practical issues of crime, jobs, and welfare? Obviously, some undocumented residents are criminals and should be prosecuted, but Christians should not exaggerate the crime rate among them. The vast majority of them are quiet, law-abiding people. We should not commit the injustice of punishing all undocumented immigrants because a few are criminals. The crime rate among citizens is at least as high and we do not deport entire cities or racial groups because of it. In addition, classifying undocumented residents as illegal increases crime among them because the good people among them are afraid to go to the police out of fear of being deported. Sanctuary cities have offered crime reduction as one of their reasons for not deporting undocumented workers. Much of the criminal activity involves the drug trade, which U.S. drug laws make enormously lucrative. Legalizing drugs and converting “illegal” residents to legal ones will help fight crime among immigrants.

  Most conservatives oppose undocumented workers because some of them use the nation’s generous welfare programs. Still, we should not resort to unjust group punishment. Undocumented residents on welfare programs form a minority and should not be used as an excuse to take away the natural right of people to move to a safe haven where they can flourish as God intended. The obvious solution is to end the use of socialist programs by undocumented residents, or better yet, get rid of them altogether and let private charity to the work more efficiently.

  It is true, all other things being equal, that undocumented workers compete with citizens for scarce jobs, but that is only half the truth. It considers the supply side of labor. What about the demand side? With free immigration, the supply side of labor can be greater than the demand and cause wages to fall. But that does not have to be the case. Wages rose in the U.S. from the Civil War until the Great Depression i
n spite of massive immigration, far greater than the undocumented immigration of today. For modern citizens that must sound like a miracle from God, but the fact that it seems miraculous demonstrates how accustomed to socialism we have become. The U.S. is very socialistic and socialism destroys jobs. The U.S. economy was much freer during the decades of the nation’s highest immigration, so entrepreneurs could create good jobs faster than immigrants could fill them. After World War I the nation turned increasingly socialist and demanded greater regulation of business by the state. As a result, job creation collapsed. The Great Depression lasted longer and went deeper in the U.S. than any other nation in the West because of the interventions of Hoover and Roosevelt.

  Today, net job creation in the U.S. has plateaued and unemployment remains low only because so many workers have become discouraged and quit looking for work. As a result, the government does not include them in the unemployment figures. If they were counted, the unemployment rate would be closer to 15 percent, so jobs are scarce. The solution to scarce jobs is not to punish undocumented immigrants, but to return to freer markets that unleash the job creating power of free people so that companies are again competing for workers, undocumented or not.