Anarcho-Capitalism: A Branden ‘Blast from the Past’

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

George,

You call Augustine benevolent? Bossing people around is benevolent?

Here we go again, Benevolence isn't really benevolence because it doesn't fit the principle. So you gotta redefine benevolence to mean what it isn't for special arguments.

Besides, ever heard of benevolent kings? How did they get their benevolence from individual rights? They had divine rights.

Getting to benevolence from individual rights would have to be a matter of enforcement of the rights.

But if everybody's an SOB (and SOB's generally don't give two hoots about individual rights other than benefits to them and their own tribe), who enforces the rights so everyone can get all benevolent and stuff?

The SOB's?

Heh.

I'm not saying benevolence should be a law. I am saying that general benevolence in the population is an existential condition for individual rights to be practiced as a social norm.

It is a prerequisite.

If people stop being benevolent in a society, rights in that society fall shortly thereafter. They don't even take root unless people are in a good neighbor attitude. (I mean people in general, not 100% of the population with no exceptions.)

I can't say this with 100% certainty until I do a lot of reading in history. But for now, this is my opinion.

But it's not just benevolence. It's morality in general, with benevolence being one of the main virtues. When people stop being moral, principally benevolent, they lose what freedom they have to gangs.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

The Inquisition was not benevolence, it was institutionalized insanity.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

You will no doubt reply that you meant voluntary benevolence.

George,

Nope.

I stated it initially and you quoted it.

I believe when a person actively chooses to become a benevolent person, this--added to reason--are what make individual rights possible.

I'm so careless that I got time mixed up. I didn't wait to do what you proclaimed I would no doubt do until after you proclaimed it. Instead, I did it before you said I would no doubt do it.

Careless me. I sure got that one wrong. (I've always been obedience-challenged, anyway.)

I'll try to be less careless next time.

I also have another opinion.

You learn benevolence from your family, in church or in some other regular social gathering. And they teach it to you from their take on the prevailing morality.

You don't learn this from individual rights alone, nor from scholarly tomes.

From what I have seen (and, hell, it's just common sense), families, churches and social gatherings (and even scholarly tomes) never needed individual rights in order to exist in the first place. I agree that they are much better off with the rights, but rights have not been a prerequisite for their existence.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The Inquisition was not benevolence, it was institutionalized insanity.

Brant,

I would even say it was a period where there were a lot of un-benevolent SOB's.

Can you imagine someone proclaiming that individual rights has to exist among those folks so they can become benevolent?

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

You will no doubt reply that you meant voluntary benevolence.

George,

Nope.

I stated it initially and you quoted it.

I believe when a person actively chooses to become a benevolent person, this--added to reason--are what make individual rights possible.

I'm so careless that I got time mixed up. I didn't wait to do what you proclaimed I would no doubt do until after you proclaimed it. Instead, I did it before you said I would no doubt do it.

Careless me. I sure got that one wrong. (I've always been obedience-challenged, anyway.)

I'll try to be less careless next time.

I also have another opinion.

You learn benevolence from your family, in church or in some other regular social gathering. And they teach it to you from the prevailing morality.

You don't learn this from individual rights alone, nor from scholarly tomes.

From what I have seen (and, hell, it's just common sense), families, churches and social gatherings (and even scholarly tomes) never needed individual rights in order to exist in the first place. I agree that they are much better off with the rights, but rights have not been a prerequisite for their existence.

Michael

Can't agree with this, especially in this country. There is also an implicit acceptance of individual rights seemingly hardwired into the human brain which recognizes that initiation of force is to be avoided as undesirable and wrong.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

Who said initation of force is desirable and right?

I presume you are talking in general terms and not in all-or-nothing.

As to exceptions, I once gave a perfect example of initiation of force where the so-called victims thought it was both right and desirable, but we are talking about a specific type of case. They were in a deranged, deeply depressed, etc., state and tried to kill themselves. They were stopped by force and given treatment. After recovery, they generally felt they dodged a bullet, didn't feel their rights were infringed at all, and were generally grateful to the force-bearers that they were still alive.

There are examples of this in abundance.

This exception does not make initiating force generally desirable and right, though. And I would never hold that as my position.

EDIT- btw - As a kid, where did you learn your morality from if not your family, church or regular social event you were made to participate in (like Boy Scouts or even school)? You dreamed it up all on your own?

Michael

[George H. Smith]

You will no doubt reply that you meant voluntary benevolence.

George,

Nope.

I stated it initially and you quoted it.

I believe when a person actively chooses to become a benevolent person, this--added to reason--are what make individual rights possible.

I'm so careless that I got time mixed up. I didn't wait to do what you proclaimed I would no doubt do until after you proclaimed it. Instead, I did it before you said I would no doubt do it.

Careless me. I sure got that one wrong. (I've always been obedience-challenged, anyway.)

I'll try to be less careless next time.

I also have another opinion.

You learn benevolence from your family, in church or in some other regular social gathering. And they teach it to you from their take on the prevailing morality.

You don't learn this from individual rights alone, nor from scholarly tomes.

From what I have seen (and, hell, it's just common sense), families, churches and social gatherings (and even scholarly tomes) never needed individual rights in order to exist in the first place. I agree that they are much better off with the rights, but rights have not been a prerequisite for their existence.

Michael

I never said that people learn benevolence from "individual rights alone, nor from scholarly tomes." Were you addressing your comments to me?

Until individual rights were recognized, the sentiment of benevolence led to all kinds of injustice. Isabel Paterson (who influenced Rand) famously called this phenomenon "the humanitarian with a guillotine." From her book, The God of the Machine: 1943).

Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends.

This is demonstrably true; nor could it occur otherwise. The percentage of positively malignant, vicious, or depraved persons is necessarily small, for no species could survive if its members were habitually and consciously bent upon injuring one another. Destruction is so easy that even a minority of persistently evil intent could shortly exterminate the unsuspecting majority of well-disposed persons. Murder, theft, rapine, and destruction are easily within the power of every individual at any time. If it is presumed that they are restrained only by fear or force, what is it they fear, or who would turn the force against them if all men were of like mind?

Certainly if the harm done by willful criminals were to be computed, the number of murders, the extent of damage and loss, would be found negligible in the sum total of death and devastation wrought upon human beings by their kind. Therefore it is obvious that in periods when millions are slaughtered, when torture is practiced, starvation enforced, oppression made a policy, as at present over a large part of the world, and as it has often been in the past, it must be at the behest of very many good people, and even by their direct action, for what they consider a worthy object. When they are not the immediate executants, they are on record as giving approval, elaborating justifications, or else cloaking facts with silence, and discountenancing discussion.

See: http://mises.org/daily/2739

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

Sure there are exceptions to the IOF rule. Most involve emergency situations, but not the military draft, especially today. Draftees are so problematic they aren't wanted any more, regardless.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

The God of the Machine is one hell of a book. I don't know how any libertarian can get along without it. Go read it, everybody!

--Brant

if you don't, I'll do unspeakable things

[Brant Gaede]

EDIT- btw - As a kid, where did you learn your morality from if not your family, church or regular social event you were made to participate in (like Boy Scouts or even school)? You dreamed it up all on your own?

I basically came up with it on my own. As a kid my so-called peers didn't treat me very well, nor each other, and I knew that was wrong. I had rights, as understood by libertarians, basically figured out by the age of 13, long before Rand hit my fan. I was very smart but not smart enough not to integrate my individual self with the state which I mixed up with being an American. The United States and America have gone their separate ways. Now one exists as an entity and the other only as an idea.

--Brant

[caroljane]

EDIT- btw - As a kid, where did you learn your morality from if not your family, church or regular social event you were made to participate in (like Boy Scouts or even school)? You dreamed it up all on your own?

I basically came up with it on my own. As a kid my so-called peers didn't treat me very well, nor each other, and I knew that was wrong. I had rights, as understood by libertarians, basically figured out by the age of 13, long before Rand hit my fan. I was very smart but not smart enough not to integrate my individual self with the state which I mixed up with being an American. The United States and America have gone their separate ways. Now one exists as an entity and the other only as an idea.

--Brant

But it has always been only an idea - a gleam in the eyes of the founding fathers. When was there ever a time when true individual freedom existed for all Americans?

[Xray]

To achieve the goal of enabling men to lead a proper human life, our approach to protecting rights must embrace reality—i.e., our theory must reflect the need for a mechanism to enable real human beings to live together in harmony.

I agree, and that's why I am an anarchist. People should be able to delegate their right of self-preservation to an agency of their own choosing, so long as that agency respects objective law and is truly an agency devoted to the defense of its customers.

But isn't it the very fact of drawing the parameters,

by objective morality - or with individual rights - that makes

real benevolence possible?

Can concepts like "proper human life", "objective law", and "objective morality" exist without the idea of a 'common good'?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Until individual rights were recognized, the sentiment of benevolence led to all kinds of injustice.

George,

Trying to be good by imposing a value on others is not necessarily benevolent. (And to be clear, I include cult indoctrination along with force as "impose.")

How many people try to be good as an arduous task and believe only suffering can lead to piousness? So they try to make others suffer along with them? That is not benevolence. Suicide bombers are not benevolent, even though their victims are supposed to have a guaranteed place in heaven.

But even that still begs the point I was making. If the general population is not interested in being good in a benevolent manner, how on earth do you propose to organize society around individual rights and enforce them?

You can't.

And just because you have to have general benevolence for such organization to occur, that is no guarantee it will happen. But it does come first, because if benevolence goes away and people become mean-spirited or apathetic (the two conditions opposite benevolence), freedom goes away.

And my other point is that goodness and benevolence are not states you decide one day and you are done. You need tune-ups--or refocus times. My point is that without most of the population engaging in some form of this, there can be no society based on rights.

These tune-ups don't have to be church because you don't need to be religious to be good and benevolent, but so far, people on our side haven't done a very good job of making anything attractive enough to become widespread and replace the church.

On the contrary, we bicker.

Bickering, which is the standard form of Objectivist and libertarian interaction, is not a good way to encourage people to reflect on goodness and benevolence. Oh, they can talk about it during the bickering, but I don't see feisty discussions and snark leading anyone to take good will toward man into their daily lives.

Hell, even New Age woo-woo people have done a better job at this than Objectivists and libertarians.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

EDIT- btw - As a kid, where did you learn your morality from if not your family, church or regular social event you were made to participate in (like Boy Scouts or even school)? You dreamed it up all on your own?

I basically came up with it on my own. As a kid my so-called peers didn't treat me very well, nor each other, and I knew that was wrong. I had rights, as understood by libertarians, basically figured out by the age of 13, long before Rand hit my fan. I was very smart but not smart enough not to integrate my individual self with the state which I mixed up with being an American. The United States and America have gone their separate ways. Now one exists as an entity and the other only as an idea.

--Brant

But it has always been only an idea - a gleam in the eyes of the founding fathers.

Not quite. At one time calling this country "The United States of America" wasn't a lie. This is now The United States, period.

--Brant

[George H. Smith]

Until individual rights were recognized, the sentiment of benevolence led to all kinds of injustice.

George,

Trying to be good by imposing a value on others is not necessarily benevolent. (And to be clear, I include cult indoctrination along with force as "impose.")

How many people try to be good as an arduous task and believe only suffering can lead to piousness? So they try to make others suffer along with them? That is not benevolence. Suicide bombers are not benevolent, even though their victims are supposed to have a guaranteed place in heaven.

But even that still begs the point I was making. If the general population is not interested in being good in a benevolent manner, how on earth do you propose to organize society around individual rights and enforce them?

You can't.

And just because you have to have general benevolence for such organization to occur, that is no guarantee it will happen. But it does come first, because if benevolence goes away and people become mean-spirited or apathetic (the two conditions opposite benevolence), freedom goes away.

And my other point is that goodness and benevolence are not states you decide one day and you are done. You need tune-ups--or refocus times. My point is that without most of the population engaging in some form of this, there can be no society based on rights.

These tune-ups don't have to be church because you don't need to be religious to be good and benevolent, but so far, people on our side haven't done a very good job of making anything attractive enough to become widespread and replace the church.

On the contrary, we bicker.

Bickering, which is the standard form of Objectivist and libertarian interaction, is not a good way to encourage people to reflect on goodness and benevolence. Oh, they can talk about it during the bickering, but I don't see feisty discussions and snark leading anyone to take good will toward man into their daily lives.

Hell, even New Age woo-woo people have done a better job at this than Objectivists and libertarians.

Michael

One does not need to be benevolent in order to respect the rights of other people. I feel no benevolence whatsoever towards racists and anti-Semites, but I respect their rights.

It is far easier to teach people about rights than it is to launch a crusade to change human nature. Jesus couldn't do it, and I doubt if you will succeed either. But good luck to you.

Ghs

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I basically came up with it on my own.

Brant,

This means you would have had to live in total isolation and even come up with your own language.

You can't escape your culture as you grow up. You can only choose within it, and later, to migrate to another one or even become a hermit. But you still take your culture with you because you can't unload it from your memory.

And your culture already comes with countless conceptual referents for you to define morality with. You absorb them whether you want to or not. And morality is so much more than just the words used to express it.

For example, I once listened to a John Truby course on screenwriting (he is one of the world's top dogs in that field). Something he said shocked me but I didn't write it down. Unfortunately, I don't have time to find it and transcribe it.

(I'm going on memory, so I may not be 100% accurate.) Basically he said an American action hero had to have a dishonest element to his character, otherwise the film would tank. Americans want their hero to be cunning, not just good and strong.

I was shocked because it's true.

Nobody preaches this, but how much do you think it reflects (and reflects back into) the prevailing morality here in the USA? I know I see sleaze all around me.

That's just one small example.

Michael

[Peter]

I placed three thought provoking quotes from recent letters written by Tony, Calvin, and Auberon Herbert (quoted by George) at the bottom.

Using Herbert’s reasoning the Government has no greater moral authority than the individual to act forcefully in retaliation, AND private defense agencies also lack this greater moral authority. Can government have equal moral authority with the individual or a private defense agency? I think it can be reasoned so. Private defense agencies are the equivalent of governments if all are chartered to defend the rights of individuals. If binding contracts are negotiated by two or more private agencies that are bound to protect individual rights then that is the same as a Constitution. If amendments are required to multiple Contracts then the amending bodies are legislatures. If arbiters are required to mediate between private defense agencies that are in conflict then those are the same as multiple Judiciary branches of the Government.

All anarchism does is for individuals to allow them to decide which quasi-governmental agency they will support. It gives the individual a choice. So if a thousand quasi-governments are acting within a territory instead of one, how does that insure the NIOF principle? Should we trust a thousand governments over one government?

Of course, it depends upon the Constitution of the one government or multiple agencies. Was it well thought out? Can it be amended to better protect individual rights? CAN THE PROVISIONS THAT GUARANTEE PERSONAL LIBERTY BE NON-AMENDABLE?

A specific case might be where a choice is given: use the Constitution to guarantee rights, or use Sharia Law and do as Allah’s representatives on earth order. I immediately see HUGE problems if individuals can choose. It is different from choosing a contractor to redo your bathroom. What if there were ten thousand defense agencies? Is that the same as ten thousand individuals acting as their own defense agency in an emergency? No - Rational Anarchy complicates. Neither the majority, the agency or the individual *rules.* Superior persuasion or superior force will rule.

Peter Taylor

Notes:

whYNOT wrote:

Here one sees the flaws in 'blanket' Rules, like NIOF. Individual rights have the major purpose of defending the weak from the powerful

bullies, the single person from the many - the moral individual from the immoral. NOT, the immoral, from the moral.

end quote

In some contradiction to Tony’s thinking, George quoted Auberon Herbert:

We hold that the one and only true basis of every society is the frank recognition of these rights of self-ownership; that is to say, of the rights of control and direction by the individual, as he himself chooses, over his own mind, his own body, and his own property, always provided, that he respects the same universal rights in others . . . . We hold that what one man cannot morally do, a million of men cannot morally do, and government, representing millions of men, cannot do. Governments are only machines, created by the individuals of a nation for their own convenience; they are only designated bodies, delegated by the individuals, and therefore they cannot possibly have larger moral rights of using force, or, indeed, larger moral rights of any kind. We may reasonably believe that an individual, as a self-owner, is morally justified in defending the rights he possesses in himself and in his own property -- by force, if necessary, against force (and fraud)*....

end quote

Calvin wrote:

I think the type of anarchism George advocates is our eventual future. It's linked to the free market, which incorporates a complex type of democracy; one in which there is not one vote per person, but rather each person has equal opportunity to earn more votes (from others). Also, with multiple protection agencies upholding a similar form of law, it is much harder to establish a law that inherently violates individual rights (like taxation).

end quote

[caroljane]

EDIT- btw - As a kid, where did you learn your morality from if not your family, church or regular social event you were made to participate in (like Boy Scouts or even school)? You dreamed it up all on your own?

I basically came up with it on my own. As a kid my so-called peers didn't treat me very well, nor each other, and I knew that was wrong. I had rights, as understood by libertarians, basically figured out by the age of 13, long before Rand hit my fan. I was very smart but not smart enough not to integrate my individual self with the state which I mixed up with being an American. The United States and America have gone their separate ways. Now one exists as an entity and the other only as an idea.

--Brant

But it has always been only an idea - a gleam in the eyes of the founding fathers.

Not quite. At one time calling this country "The United States of America" wasn't a lie. This is now The United States, period.

--Brant

When was this time?

[Xray]

Until individual rights were recognized, the sentiment of benevolence led to all kinds of injustice. Isabel Paterson (who influenced Rand) famously called this phenomenon "the humanitarian with a guillotine." From her book, The God of the Machine: 1943).

Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends.

This is demonstrably true; nor could it occur otherwise. The percentage of positively malignant, vicious, or depraved persons is necessarily small, for no species could survive if its members were habitually and consciously bent upon injuring one another. Destruction is so easy that even a minority of persistently evil intent could shortly exterminate the unsuspecting majority of well-disposed persons. Murder, theft, rapine, and destruction are easily within the power of every individual at any time. If it is presumed that they are restrained only by fear or force, what is it they fear, or who would turn the force against them if all men were of like mind?

Certainly if the harm done by willful criminals were to be computed, the number of murders, the extent of damage and loss, would be found negligible in the sum total of death and devastation wrought upon human beings by their kind. Therefore it is obvious that in periods when millions are slaughtered, when torture is practiced, starvation enforced, oppression made a policy, as at present over a large part of the world, and as it has often been in the past, it must be at the behest of very many good people, and even by their direct action, for what they consider a worthy object. When they are not the immediate executants, they are on record as giving approval, elaborating justifications, or else cloaking facts with silence, and discountenancing discussion.

See: http://mises.org/daily/2739

Imo it is not bevolence that causes the harm; it is cowardice.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

It is far easier to teach people about rights than it is to launch a crusade to change human nature.

George,

I once did a mind experiment for you where we transpose a bunch of hardened criminals to a desert island.

I don't remember your reaction except that it was grumpy. But let's do it again.

I say, go on and teach them about rights all you want. Then leave and come back in a few months.

Heh.

Double heh.

Jesus couldn't do it, and I doubt if you will succeed either.

I'm beginning to think that without Jesus's call to individual salvation as a top human value, individualism would have taken a much longer time to develop.

Over the centuries, his idea of the intrinsic preciousness of each human being. not just the "chosen ones." became implanted in Western culture and this, I believe, provided fertile ground for the appearance of concern with individual rights.

The difference between Jesus's view of the inherent value of each individual and Rand's notion that each man is an end in himself is but a small step. His notion of human nature was different than Rand's (especially in terms of metaphysics), but not his notion of the importance of each individual on a fundamental level.

Rand and Jesus obviously have strong differences, but not on this point.

(They also have another point in common. Each believed man was not complete from birth and needed some sort of salvation as a mature exercise of his volition. Jesus needed acceptance as the Son of God and Rand needed the person to embrace reason as his sole method of cognition. Otherwise, a precious individual in the eyes of God for Jesus, or a sovereign end in himself for Rand, was morally doomed.)

You are free to disagree, of course.

As to our mean machine convicts on the desert island, I believe a good dose of Jesus would have a far better chance of success of resulting in a harmonious society than lectures on individual rights. Neither would come with a guarantee, but, if I were a betting man, I would place my money on Jesus.

I don't agree with some of Jesus's teachings, but, tactically, his approach of forgiveness and redemption has been a lot better at defanging bad guys in their will over mankind's history than any talk about the right to life.

It's common sense. If a person stops wanting to be mean, he will most likely stop pursuing meanness.

Hell, I even see the possibility of the bad guys on that island discussing and fully adopting individual rights after a while of being kind to each other.

I don't see any possibility for the contrary.

Incidentally, I have no wish to make a crusade to change human nature.

I'll leave that kind of crusading to believers who pursue utopia.

Michael

[George H. Smith]

It is far easier to teach people about rights than it is to launch a crusade to change human nature.

George,

I once did a mind experiment for you where we transpose a bunch of hardened criminals to a desert island.

I don't remember your reaction except that it was grumpy. But let's do it again.

I say, go on and teach them about rights all you want. Then leave and come back in a few months.

Heh.

Double heh.

I leave it to you to transform these hardened criminals into benevolent people first, and then I will teach them about rights.

In truth, the reciprocal recognition of rights -- in practice, if not always in theory -- comes about as a result of self-interested motives, as people learn that peaceful cooperation serves their own long-range interests. A society could not exist without an understanding by a large segment of that society of the benefits of justice.

It was a truism among 18th century classical liberals that justice must exist, to some degree, even among a band of thieves. If thieves were constantly stealing from one another, they could not hold together as a band.

In the Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith compares society to a building. He said that justice constitutes the foundation of the building, i.e., that without which the building would collapse. He then compared benevolence, which he called "beneficence," to an "ornament" of the building.

Smith's point (which he elaborated upon in Wealth of Nations) is that a society can exist and prosper if everyone does nothing more than pursue his own interests, with no concern for others, within the boundaries of justice, by engaging in "mercenary" exchanges with others. This is the mininal condition for social existence. But this society would not be the best kind of society. For this we need the virtue of beneficience. This virtue, though not necessary for the existence of a society, make a society a more desirable place to live.

The principles of justice (i.e., rights) establish limits to benevolence. Benevolence, or a concern for the welfare of others, is fine so long as it does not employ force, whether by individuals or government. But if you erase or ignore these boundaries, then you get the likes of Barack Obama, who is probably brimming with benevolence for the poor and disadvantaged. So what?

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

EDIT- btw - As a kid, where did you learn your morality from if not your family, church or regular social event you were made to participate in (like Boy Scouts or even school)? You dreamed it up all on your own?

I basically came up with it on my own. As a kid my so-called peers didn't treat me very well, nor each other, and I knew that was wrong. I had rights, as understood by libertarians, basically figured out by the age of 13, long before Rand hit my fan. I was very smart but not smart enough not to integrate my individual self with the state which I mixed up with being an American. The United States and America have gone their separate ways. Now one exists as an entity and the other only as an idea.

--Brant

But it has always been only an idea - a gleam in the eyes of the founding fathers.

Not quite. At one time calling this country "The United States of America" wasn't a lie. This is now The United States, period.

--Brant

When was this time?

March 27, 1944--the day before I was born.

--Brant

I ruined everything

[George H. Smith]

I don't agree with some of Jesus's teachings, but, tactically, his approach of forgiveness and redemption has been a lot better at defanging bad guys in their will over mankind's history than any talk about the right to life.

Yet another gem about the history of mankind. I have so much to learn from you.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

I don't agree with some of Jesus's teachings, but, tactically, his approach of forgiveness and redemption has been a lot better at defanging bad guys in their will over mankind's history than any talk about the right to life.

Yet another gem about the history of mankind. I have so much to learn from you.

Ghs

Wait until you find Jesus, George--then you'll say, "JESUS!" (H. Christ)

--Brant

[George H. Smith]

I don't agree with some of Jesus's teachings, but, tactically, his approach of forgiveness and redemption has been a lot better at defanging bad guys in their will over mankind's history than any talk about the right to life.

Yet another gem about the history of mankind. I have so much to learn from you.

Ghs

Wait until you find Jesus, George--then you'll say, "JESUS!" (H. Christ)

--Brant

I don't need to wait to be saved. Michael's posts on this topic have caused me to scream Jesus! repeatedly.

Rather than concern myself with rights any longer, I think I will hook up loudspeakers on the outside of my house and play this tune 24/7.

Ghs