Amendment I (cont'd):

The Emperor's "Parade of Horribles":

After Boerne –– except for the improved legal status of American Indian peyotism via the American Indian Religious Freedom Act Amendments of 1994 —— we are legally in much the same situation we were in immediately after Smith. The general government's exemption for the Native American Church –– from controlled substance laws –– is now mandatory in all the States as well. Exemptions on free exercise grounds –– from neutral, generally applicable laws –– are still deeply hated by a majority on the supreme Court. Exemptions based on the establishment clause are more rarely sought, but the opinion in Corporation of the Presiding Bishop v. Amos (1987) shows that they are possible. The RFRA still applies at the general level, but through Boerne, the Court stridently refused to apply it to the States. Some States have adopted RFRA-like legislation, which means that they mandate that State judiciaries use the compelling interest test to create free-exercise based exemptions to neutral, generally applicable laws wherever the courts deem it appropriate. But there is something deeply wrong with this whole process of exemption-creation, just as there is something deeply wrong with refusing to create exemptions when a religion is clearly burdened.

(i)If either a State or the general government refuses to grant an exemption to a religion that is obviously burdened, that religion's recourse is to seek relief in the legislature. "What [the exemption process] means is that politically powerful religions will be able to lobby successfully for exemptions from burdensome legislation in Congress and the state legislatures, while the free exercise of politically powerless religions –– those most in need of constitutional protection from the majoritarian political process –– will be wholly dependent upon the goodwill of political majorities. Reynolds and Smith themselves are evidence that politically powerless religions will often fail to obtain legislative exemptions for their religious practices."[note] Politically disabled religions by definition have little impact on legislatures. It is miraculous that a religion as politically disabled as the Native American Church was able to move mountains to get the AIRFAA passed. It's attributable to a providential mix of stupendous leadership and effort, circumstances related to the existence of the Coalition for the Free Exercise of Religion (CFER) –– a coalition the likes of which we might never see again, –– the unique status of Native Americans, and the overwhelming degree of oppression that the mega-state was exerting against NAC. The ordinary oppressed religion is unlikely to marshal such resources, and is unlikely to find such legislative relief. So ordinarily, when a religion is oppressed by a law the religion has little viable recourse. In the words of President Johnson, the best they can do is act "like a donkey in a hail storm". If the law is specifically targeted at that specific religion, then that's a violation of the 14^th Amendment equal protection clause, and the courts should remedy that. But legislative bodies know this, and –– unlike the City of Hialeah in Lukumi –– they are generally able to use stealth, crafty words, and majoritarian politics to get what they want through neutral, generally applicable laws. The politically powerless religion's recourse then is to carry on their religion the best they can, knowing that bad laws are oppressing them.

(ii)When a burdened religion acquires an exemption from a neutral, generally applicable law –– regardless of whether it's by a traditional Sherbert-Yoder-based judicial decision, a judicial decision based on RFRA statutes, or a statutory or administrative exemption –– the exemption establishes the exempted religion, in violation of the 14^th Amendment equal protection clause as well as the 1^st Amendment. One could argue that American Indian peyotism is an established religion because it is exempt from the controlled substance laws. It's our view that it is absolutely preferable for NAC to be established rather than driven into oblivion by bad laws. But it's also unavoidably obvious that it is established. In part such establishment derives from the fact that this is an American Indian religion, and American Indians rightfully, lawfully, and legally have a unique status. But where does this leave people like Galen Black, the white guy who got invited to a Native American Church service and absolutely fell in love with it? He's obviously in a dangerous grey area. He's what Indians call a "wannabe". He may wish he had all the rights and privileges of being Indian, but he never will, because he's not an Indian. People like Galen Black have a legitimate complaint: NAC is an established religion, and it's difficult for me to participate in it because this established religion is exclusively for Indians.

It's absolutely critical for American Indians to retain their special status for as long as they want it. To whatever extent they receive special benefits from general and State governments, by way of treaties and legislation like AIRFA (1978) and AIRFAA (1994), such benefits should continue indefinitely, because they are the law and such laws are lawful. But that doesn't mean that people like Galen Black should be victimized by bad laws. The problem with this exemption –– establishment on one hand, and heavy-handed government oppression on the other –– has little or nothing to do with Native American legal status. But it has everything to do with bad laws. The bad laws are the fruit of governmental ignorance of basic jurisdictional principles. They are the by-product of secular governments' belief, and acting out the belief, that it's OK for secular governments to exercise religious police powers. It's not OK!

Since Boerne, the supreme Court has repeatedly enforced not only its constricted conception of free exercise, but also its anemic view of 14^th Amendment §1 (i)privileges and immunities, (ii)due process, and (iii)equal protection. It has thereby rejected and overridden Congress's sometimes broader view of these rights. The supreme Court's posture undermines not only these constitutional rights, but also these unalienable Rights, and in so doing, it undermines the health and safety of the republic. Every human being has an unalienable Right to practice whatever religion they choose (assuming that it doesn't condone bloodshed), and they also have an unalienable Right to be free from tyranny. Free exercise is a right that MUST be available not only to dominant, majoritarian religions, but also to minority religions, American Indians, and people who claim to be secular. —— Given the magnitude of the mega-state, the salvage of such unalienable Rights looks like a huge undertaking.

To conclude our examination of the present religion clause predicament, we'll go through a short exercise to share our thoughts about how to simultaneously gain free exercise and avoid the parade of horribles. We'll look at each of the "horribles" mentioned by Justice Scalia in Smith. We'll examine each of these "horribles" to answer two overriding questions: (i)What should existing governments do to remedy the current predicament? (ii)What should Bible-believing Christians do regardless of what secular governments do? According to Scalia and company, "The rule respondents favor [(compelling interest test)] would open the prospect of constitutionally required religious exemptions from civic obligations of almost every conceivable kind" (494 U.S. 872, Scalia's Part II-B), including the following:

(i)Compulsory Military Service:

According to our reading of Scripture, all human beings have an obligation to avoid perpetrating bloodshed, and to execute justice (retribution, restitution, or injunction) against people who DO perpetrate bloodshed. But not all people are qualified to execute such justice because they might be too weak, too sick, too old, too young, too stupid, or too much of any number of other things. So many people lack capacity to execute such justice. So since the beginning of civilization, societies have found people with capacity, and calling, to work in this field. In the investigation, we call the people who work in this field the social compact's jural society. Citizens of the social compact who have not been participants in the jural society have paid taxes to pay jural society members, and to relieve their personal obligations to execute justice. —— Military service is one lawful way to execute justice against perpetrators of bloodshed. The difference between police who work to execute justice against bloodshed, and military people who execute justice against bloodshed, is that the military branch of the jural society deals with large groups of people who as a nation or group are perpetrating bloodshed on a massive scale, while police deal with smaller groups and individuals, usually within the geographical jurisdiction of the social compact.

There are at least two big problems with compulsory military service: (a)Nations don't always, even usually don't, distinguish military actions that are responses to bloodshed from military actions that are rationalized in some other manner. Military actions that are responses to bloodshed are perfectly justified, as long as excessive force is avoided and as long as a thorough cost-benefit analysis is done before the action –– where such cost-benefit analysis shows the action to be relatively beneficial. But numerous military actions executed by the general government in American history have not conformed to these criteria. So numerous military actions have NOT been justified. Military actions that are not justified by both of these two criteria are usually perpetrations of bloodshed by our nation against some other nation. Under such government-sponsored bloodshed, compulsory military service essentially forces the inductee to perpetrate bloodshed against other people. (b)Compulsory military service is more than a mere tax. It is coercing someone into a vocation. It is coercing someone into a pretended contract. All people are obligated to pay taxes based on the universal obligation to execute justice against bloodshed. But all people are NOT obligated to military service unless execution against bloodshed is proven a priori to be the motive behind the obligation. The accepted concept of compulsory military service does not allow for such examination of motive. So modern compulsory military service is in fact bloodshed against the conscripted individual, perpetrated by secular government.

In order to remedy this situation, secular governments should eliminate all attempts at compulsory military service. This suggestion obviously looks like a "horrible" to Justice Scalia and company. No doubt they're convinced that such an action might leave the nation undefended. After 9/11/01, this may seem especially scary to defenders of the status quo like Scalia. But if secular governments acknowledged that they are lawful only when they observe the jurisdictions of secular social compacts, secular governments would eliminate all their spending on everything but those things that are essential to secular social compacts. By eliminating all this wasteful spending, they would have ample funds available to provide "top dollar" to people who volunteer for military service. That would eliminate the perceived need for secular compulsory military service, by making voluntary military service an attractive, honored, and admirably remunerated vocation. But a better-paid general military is not the optimal source of security when the united States are under daily terrorist threats. When threats are at the grass roots, that's where defense needs to be. By (i)acknowledging that general, State, and local governments are secular; (ii)acknowledging that religious social compacts have an unalienable Right to have jural societies that are fully armed; and (iii)developing and arming such grass-roots jural societies; the American people –– both denizens and citizens –– will be able to defend themselves far more effectively than through Scalia's compulsory military service.

What should Bible-believing Christians do regardless of what secular governments do? —— God has called us to be a covenant-keeping people, meaning that we who volunteer to follow His ways voluntarily obligate ourselves to live in religious social compacts with one-another. As implied in Boerne v. Flores, land, i.e., a defensible geographical jurisdiction, is essential to having a functional religious social compact. Every social compact, including religious social compacts, are composed of both a jural society and an ecclesiastical society. The jural society might be the bare minimum (a)to ensure that the parties to the religious social compact are not guilty of bloodshed, and if they are, to either execute justice against them or hand them over to a secular jural society to do the same; and (b)to defend the religious social compact against any outsiders, including secular governments and terrorists, that might attempt to damage or destroy anything within the geographical jurisdiction of the religious social compact. Given that this is the reasonable calling to every Christian jural society, it's reasonable to believe that the jural society might form a militia to execute the jural society's latter, defensive duty. It might even be written into the social compact that every able-bodied male of a certain age might be required, as a party to the compact, to participate in the militia. It might also be written into the social compact that if called upon to help an umbrella secular social compact to execute a bloodshed-motivated military action against some threat, the religious jural society's militia would, in fact, lend such assistance. Here is another remedy to this "horrible" seen by Scalia and company. (For more about religious social compacts having jural societies armed to defend their community against external threats, especially "terrorists", see the 2nd Amendment.)

(ii)Payment of Taxes:

As mentioned above, every human being is obligated to execute justice against perpetrators of bloodshed, and to avoid being a perpetrator oneself. Given our resulting attempts at living in a civilized society, these obligations translate into the following obligations: Every human being (with capacity) is obligated (a)to pay taxes to his/her local jural society to execute justice against perpetrators of bloodshed, and/or (b)to work actively as a member of a jural society to execute justice against perpetrators of bloodshed. These are the only tax obligations that are universal, i.e., that have a global in personam jurisdiction. So these are the only tax obligations that a secular social compact –– like whatever is still lawful about the general government of the united States –– is lawful to collect by coercion. According to the hermeneutic used in the investigation, the Bible makes it abundantly clear that confiscatory taxation is lawful when revenues are spent to execute justice against bloodshed, but at no other time is confiscatory taxation lawful.

At this point we could draft our own parade of horribles that would be composed not merely of futuristic "horribles", but would, in fact, be real and present perpetrations of bloodshed by agencies like the IRS and the BATF. But for the sake of brevity, we'll forgo the Welfare State "parade" for now. The much bigger problem is not with how revenues are collected, but with how they are spent. Most of the revenues of all secular governments in the united States are NOT spent on executing justice against bloodshed. They are spent on an overabundance of good-seeming projects that have nothing whatever to do with bloodshed. If the funds spent on such projects were collected from voluntary donations, then such good-seeming projects might be lawful. But they are not collected through voluntary donations, and they are not lawful. They are collected through confiscatory taxation. They are collected through government-sponsored bloodshed.

In order to remedy this situation, secular governments should start by making a direct linkage between taxing and spending. Revenuers should calculate the percentage of the secular government's budget that is spent specifically on bloodshed (especially on gross delicts), and should make that portion of the tax-base confiscatory. The rest of the tax-base should be voluntary. No doubt this suggestion sounds "horrible" to Justice Scalia and company. No doubt they're convinced that an action like this would surely be the demise of the nation. If secular government manages the process properly, it will not be the demise of the nation, but the liberating of it. All the functions of secular governments that are not lawful functions of secular social compacts, would necessarily be privatized. The attitude to take in this privatization process is that such agencies, properties, etc., already belong to the American people, not to secular governments. The problem lies in finding capable management for the rightful owners. It's not a good idea to go the same route that the Soviet Union went at its dissolution. Giving collectivist agencies to private operators for a pittance doesn't give the real owners, the American people, adequate say in how the agencies will be managed in the private sector. Selling to the highest bidder is also not always the best way to go. For every such agency or function, there will probably be some variation on how best to transfer such functions from the public sector to the private sector. One way might be to assume that every citizen has a voting share in the organization, and citizens will be able to vote on how the privatization process should proceed. The real problem is not the transfer process. The real problem is the resolve to do it. The resolve to do it comes from the American people being aware of what our present circumstances are. One of the most potent ways to make this awareness widespread is to repeal all tax withholding laws. This delivers employers from being coerced into being tax collectors. It makes employees genuinely aware of how much of their paychecks they're giving to secular government.

What should Bible-believing Christians do regardless of what secular governments do? —— God has called us to be a covenant-keeping people, meaning that we who volunteer to follow His ways voluntarily obligate ourselves to live in religious social compacts with one-another. One of the big obstacles that Christian churches now have is that they are almost universally obligated to operate as 26 U.S.C. §501(c)(3), "tax-exempt not-for-profit" corporations. This –– along with numerous other misconstructions of American law –– makes it clear that most churches have a corrupted status. Under present circumstances, their ability to own truly private land, and thereby establish genuine geographical jurisdiction is limited. Their legal ability to take actions that directly impact secular governments is limited. Their ability to form truly functional jural and ecclesiastical societies, and therefore functional religious social compacts is limited. It is therefore critical for every American Christian to either (a)abandon their §501(c)(3) church, and form a non-§501(c)(3) church instead, or (b)convert their §501(c)(3) church into a non-§501(c)(3) church. It's critical for every American Christian to then take their non-§501(c)(3) church to the next step: The non-§501(c)(3) churches need to form religious social compacts, meaning that they need to form jural and ecclesiastical societies. These religious social compacts need to assume all religious police powers over their geographical jurisdiction. All health, safety, education, morality, and welfare functions need to be taken care of locally, within the geographical jurisdiction. By becoming a party to such a religious social compact, a person gives prior consent to pay taxes to the religious social compact for religious police powers. Many of these religious police powers are the same religious police powers that should be denied to secular social compacts. —— It's much more important for God-fearing people to form religious social compacts than it is for them to push secular governments to change. It's prudent for us to believe that "judgment must begin at the house of God" (1 Peter 4:17; KJV). So it's important for us to change "the house of God" first. Whether any given individual party to such a religious social compact continues paying taxes to pay for functions of secular government that are not lawful functions of a secular social compact, needs to be decided privately by each party, according to their own conscience. But it's important to understand that a mechanism already exists for religious social compacts to pay for the umbrella services of the general secular social compact: the "direct" tax of Article I §2 cl 3 and §9 cl 4. If the religious social compact pays "direct Taxes" for the lawful services of the general, State, and other secular governments, then individual members of the religious social compact should be relieved of having to do so.

(iii)Health and Safety Regulations:

Health and safety regulations are police powers that are unlawful when executed by a secular social compact. As such, all health and safety regulations of secular governments need to be privatized or abolished. Without a doubt, Scalia and company think this proposal is close to treason. They certainly assume that such a "horrible" would result in social chaos. But if the privatization / abolition proceeds as outlined in (ii) above, the process would be orderly, and the result would be liberating.

What should Bible-believing Christians do regardless of what secular governments do? —— God has called us to be a covenant-keeping people, meaning that we who volunteer to follow His ways voluntarily obligate ourselves to live in religious social compacts with one-another. This means that we will attempt to implement "health and safety regulation" –– as well as other religious police powers –– within our religious social compacts. Again, the advantage of doing it this way is that religious social compacts operate, by definition, on consent, while secular governments, by obvious experience, do not. —— More and more, Scalia's parade of horribles looks like a parade of paper tigers and hallucinatory bogeymen.

(iv)Compulsory Vaccination Laws:

For decades now, secular governments have been using compulsory education as an opportunity to force vaccinations on children. Compulsory education is wrong, because it is compulsory, and therefore bloodshed. "[C]ompulsory vaccination laws" are wrong for the same reason. Secular, confiscatory taxation to pay for "public education" needs to be stopped, and "public schools" need to be privatized. Likewise, whether children are vaccinated needs to be left to the prerogative of parents, not to secular governments who have an unlawful claim on all children as wards of the mega-state. So all "compulsory vaccination laws" need to be repealed. —— Once again, we see Justice Scalia rolling his eyes and grimacing at the thought of what a "horrible" idea this is. What can we think, except that he and his company have been exalting positive law above morality for far too long?

What should Bible-believing Christians do regardless of what secular governments do? —— God has called us to be a covenant-keeping people, meaning that we who volunteer to follow His ways voluntarily obligate ourselves to live in religious social compacts with one-another. This means that each of us needs to be party to a religious social compact that implements religious police powers. Such a religious social compact might require parties to send their children to a school located within the religious social compact's geographical jurisdiction, and operated according to a curriculum consistent with the beliefs of the religious social compact, or it might not. Likewise, such a religious social compact might require parties to have their children vaccinated, and it might not. —— Hard core advocates of vaccination believe that vaccination should not be voluntary. But the fact of the matter is that a percentage of all who are vaccinated get sick from the vaccination, and some die. This means that such an act of government-perpetrated bloodshed demands retribution. Hard core advocates for compulsory vaccination claim this is too bad, because it's a small price to pay for the elimination of contagious diseases. But people who practice alternative medicine have totally different views. The bottom line is that every human being owns their physical body as an unalienable Right. Any claims of secular government to the contrary are criminal. All adults therefore have an unalienable Right to decide for themselves whether they and their children will be vaccinated. Secular governments are way out-of-bounds in overriding this unalienable Right to consent.

(v)Drug Laws:

Jesus said, "Listen to Me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside the man which going into him can defile him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man. … Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him; because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated? … That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man." (Mark 7:14b-20b; NASB). This is admittedly a controversial passage, because it's essential for it to stand against a large body of literature in the Tanakh that appears to contradict it. We have no intention of entering into this theological debate here. We posit it here only to show that "drug laws" inhabit a theological grey area that is dangerous for any secular social compact. It's not only dangerous. It's a direct violation of globally prescribed positive law. That's because the global covenant makes it unavoidably obvious that every human being owns his or her physical body. For a secular government to mandate what a person can or cannot eat, drink, wear, shoot up, snort, absorb as suppositories, or consume in any other way is for the secular government to violate property rights. People either own their bodies, and get to do what they want with them (assuming no bloodshed), or they don't. If they don't, then they have either contractually volunteered through prior consent to curtail consumption of certain substances, or they are being forced by non-consensual laws to curtail consumption of certain substances.

We don't doubt that it's stupid to consume some things. People are not made to eat rocks. Cyanide consumption is suicidal. Consumption of many substances is almost always poor stewardship of what God has given us. Even so, who gets to decide what's good for us, and what's not? When we were children, our parents decided. When we grew up, we, as adults, should decide. Regrettably, in our country at this time, adults are not allowed to make such decisions for themselves, or for their children. That's because the secular governments make de facto claims that all people within their respective geographical jurisdictions are wards of the mega-state. This claim plays itself out as bloodshed perpetrated by secular governments on a massive scale. —— The type of economic system that is the automatic by-product of any serious implementation of the investigation's view of positive law, is not a capitalist system, and not a communist system. It's a free market. This doesn't mean that we have open borders, and it doesn't mean that we don't have rules. It means that we have borders that are controlled by social compacts, and these social compacts embody the rules. It doesn't mean that we have no black markets. It means that secular social compacts minimize the existence of black markets within their own immediate jurisdictions, by eliminating non-consensual laws. But religious social compacts still get to control their borders according to their own, internal positive laws. If people want to continue the status quo regarding FDA / DEA regulations and controlled substance laws, then they can band together in religious social compacts with like-minded people, and maintain such status quo. Even so, all "drug laws" –– including all the regulations of the Food and Drug Administration and all controlled substance laws –– MUST be repealed by these secular governments that purport to be secular. That's because –– if the existence of such secular governments is lawful under the investigation's hermeneutic –– they are secular social compacts. As such, they have no lawful power or authority to impose "drug laws" on anyone. —— Here again, it's easy to imagine Scalia and company bent over their toilet seats in disgust. The thought of relinquishing such power, and the social chaos that would ensue, is too much for them to bear. They might rather be criminals than allow it.

What should Bible-believing Christians do regardless of what secular governments do? —— God has called us to be a covenant-keeping people, meaning that we who volunteer to follow His ways voluntarily obligate ourselves to live in religious social compacts with one-another. Regarding food, drugs, medicines, and practically anything else that people put into themselves, Bible-believing Christians are spread all over the map. There is a multitude of different preferences, and a variety of ways of rationalizing such preferences based on Scripture. Since this is an application of the Bible's global positive laws to the Constitution –– and not a full-blown theology –– we'll not make recommendations about what people should eat, drink, or consume in any other way. We'll instead make general statements about how we should proceed. Now, regardless of what secular governments do, Bible-believing Christians should consensually compact themselves into religious social compacts. Christian jural societies should do the bare minimum (a)to ensure that the parties to the religious social compact are not guilty of bloodshed, and if they are, to either execute justice against them or hand them over to a secular jural society to do the same; and (b)to defend the religious social compact against any outsiders that might attempt to damage or destroy anything within the geographical jurisdiction of the religious social compact. Christian ecclesiastical societies should, by the prior consent or acquiescence of all parties, establish and enforce religious police powers that accord with the preferences of all parties to the religious social compact. —— If the religious social compact is composed primarily of Bible-believing Native American Church members, then the religious police powers would allow peyote to cross the borders of the religious social compact's geographical jurisdiction, and peyote would be completely legal within that jurisdiction. But the same religious social compact might disallow entry of other substances into the community. For example, alcoholic beverages might be banned. —— If the religious social compact is composed primarily of Bible-believing people who want to live by the present FDA / DEA regulations and controlled substance laws, then they could consensually have religious police powers that reflect that. If the FDA were privatized, then this same community might subscribe to whatever the FDA decided about any given substance. The police powers of the religious social compact would allow community police to stop substance smugglers at the borders of the compact's geographical jurisdiction. —— This approach allows the continuation of diversity and free exercise. It also allows people to protect their children and themselves against undesirable influences. It ensures that Christians, in surrendering the ownership of their bodies to God –– and thanking Him for the stewardship authority over the same that He gives in return –– are less likely (i)to subject themselves to un-Godly temptations, and (ii)to impose their biblical standards of morality on other people without the latter's consent.

(vi)Traffic Laws:

In accordance with our view of Article I § 8 cl 7, we believe that all roads and highways that are presently owned, operated, and policed by secular governments should be privatized. This doesn't mean that the roads and highways should be sold to the highest bidder, or given for a pittance to the most prominent ex-collectivist. It means that the American people own these roads, not the government. It means that the current administration of these roads is de facto bloodshed, because the funds that support the administration of these roads are collected by confiscatory taxation. Confiscatory taxation is unlawful for the purpose of administering roads and highways. So this confiscatory taxation is theft. So the roads are administered through bloodshed. The American people own these roads. It's absolutely essential that these roads be administered in a manner that is not bloodshed. They must be privatized, because road administration is outside the lawful jurisdiction of secular social compacts.

Here's one idea about how they could be privatized: For a given secular government –– and the roads that are presently under the immediate jurisdiction of that secular government –– certificates of ownership could be presented to every citizen of that secular government. Each certificate allows one vote. A committee could be formed through existing political processes (meaning open to public scrutiny and recommendations), specifically for the purpose of designing a variety of privatization options. Everyone with a certificate would thereafter have the option of voting on the various plans. The plan that receives the majority of the votes would be the privatization option / plan that would be implemented. —— After the roads are privatized, the big question becomes, who owns, operates, and polices them, and how are these administrative functions performed? These are questions that would be decided by the voting process. But most people, because they use the roads so much, are most concerned about how they are maintained and policed. Would it automatically mean tollbooths everywhere? Would it mean that drunk drivers got off without any punishment whatever? —— If it were left up to us, the maintenance of these roads would not change much, and payments for such maintenance would be made by the people who owned and used the roads. There wouldn't be tollbooths, because there are plenty of other ways to pay for roads and highways. We wouldn't change the policing process much either, except in one very important respect: The organization that would form out of this voting process would be a religious social compact. For this hypothetical voting process, the parties of the new religious social compact would be anyone with a certificate who agreed to abide by the by-laws of the new organization / religious social compact. This new organization / religious social compact would have religious police powers. This means that parties to this social compact would be giving prior consent to abide by these contractual positive laws. These contractual positive laws would probably include laws about speed limits, driving while intoxicated, stop signs, etc. People would be giving prior consent to abiding by such positive laws, rather than being forced by a form of government that appears to the ordinary person to be out of control, and to be abusive on many fronts. —— Are Scalia and company likely to approve of this kind of plan? Absolutely not!

What should Bible-believing Christians do regardless of what secular governments do? —— God has called us to be a covenant-keeping people, meaning that we who volunteer to follow His ways voluntarily obligate ourselves to live in religious social compacts with one-another. The type of religious social compact / organization that would develop out of the above sketch of highway privatization, would not be like the kind of religious social compact that we would live in, raise our kids in, educate our kids in, work in, worship in, etc. But we should encourage the development of that kind of highway religious social compact as an adjunct to the religious social compact that we live in.

(vii)Social Welfare Legislation:

Scripture makes it unavoidably obvious that Christians are obligated by their covenant with God to do whatever is within our means to take care of widows, orphans, poor people, disabled people, and other dependent and frail people of every kind. For generations now, instead of doing this, nominal Christians have been turning such responsibilities over to secular governments. The result is the American Welfare State. This Welfare State has more in common with an Orwellian Tower of Babel than with anything upon which God would put His stamp of approval. As He does with much of human iniquity, He may allow it for a time. But in the end, He will make sure that it's destroyed. If we are wise, we will turn it into something that glorifies Him before He destroys it.

All "social welfare legislation" (at least on its face) is justified as part of a religious social compact. None of it is justified as part of a secular social compact. That's because –– among other things –– of the way that funds for the administration of secular "social welfare legislation" are collected. They are collected through confiscatory taxation. Since such taxes are not collected through voluntary means, and since involuntary means are justified only for enforcement against bloodshed, taxation for the administration of the "social welfare legislation" is theft. In other words, such taxation is government-perpetrated bloodshed. Therefore, all administrative agencies that spring from such "social welfare legislation" need to be privatized or abolished. Likewise, all such "social welfare legislation" needs to be repealed.

What should Bible-believing Christians do regardless of what secular governments do? —— God has called us to be a covenant-keeping people, meaning that we who volunteer to follow His ways voluntarily obligate ourselves to live in religious social compacts with one-another. All the good-seeming objectives of secular "social welfare legislation" deserve to be implemented locally within our religious social compacts, on a consensual basis. So as Bible-believing Christians, that's what we should do. But there's one other aspect of this that we might consider. —— If the secular social welfare agencies were privatized –– in a manner similar to the process recommended above for roads and highways –– then these administrative agencies would be funded by voluntary mechanisms. It might behoove Christian social compacts to consider such newly emancipated social welfare agencies as adjunct religious social compacts, for the sake of fulfilling our obligations to minister to poor and dependent people.

(viii)Child Labor Laws:

It's important for all people to start learning how to work while they are still young. But some types of child labor are clearly abuse, and worse, some are clearly bloodshed. Turning children into prostitutes is a hideous breed of bloodshed that deserves retribution. Putting them into hazardous work that endangers their lives is also bloodshed. For an adult to volunteer for hazardous work, is his or her prerogative. But children have not reached the age at which their consent should work in anyone's favor other than the child's. So if a child consents to crawl into a mine that is known to be dangerous, child-endangerment laws should override his consent, and whoever put the child up to that act should be prosecuted by the local jural society. But if a six-year old is instructed by his parents to milk his goat regularly, no child labor laws should have jurisdiction. But if a child is sent to work in some sweatshop, where he's likely to get "repetitive motion syndrome", that endangers the child's health and should be stopped by the local jural society. —— These are the kinds of criteria that should be used in determining what child labor laws should be repealed by secular governments, and which of them to keep.

What should Bible-believing Christians do regardless of what secular governments do? —— God has called us to be a covenant-keeping people, meaning that we who volunteer to follow His ways voluntarily obligate ourselves to live in religious social compacts with one-another. These religious social compacts have huge advantages over present circumstances, regarding care given to children. If children go to schools that are located within the geographical jurisdictions of Christian religious social compacts, and are run by standards set by the parties thereto, then the children are spared exposure to bad influences from bad curricula, drug abusers, bad media, Columbine killers, and secular limitations on what kinds of constructive activities children are allowed to do. Each such community can develop its own "child labor laws". They could be stricter than those enforced by secular jural societies. But they would never be more hazardous to the child's welfare.

(ix)Animal Cruelty Laws:

Generally, animals are chattels. This derives from the attributes with which God endowed human beings, relative to animals. For example, in Genesis 1:26, "God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.'" (NASB). In other words, human beings are endowed with the ability and calling to take dominion over the animal kingdom. We are called to take possession of them, and treat them as property. Does this mean that we are called to abuse them, and be cruel to them? No! It means that we are called to be good stewards of them. This calling is a global attribute of humanity. All human beings are called to be good stewards over the animal kingdom, and especially over whatever animals may come into our immediate possession. But is this global attribute enforceable by way of globally prescribed positive law? —— No! Globally prescribed positive law pertains to bloodshed, and to bloodshed alone. Bloodshed is inflicted upon humans, not upon animals. —— So if someone comes into possession of an animal, and is cruel to that animal, according to the investigation, does a secular social compact have grounds for imposing its positive law upon that person?

The only conditions under which a secular social compact could have jurisdiction over animal cruelty is (a)if the animal cruelty exists in the immediate geographical jurisdiction of the secular government, and certain other conditions are met; or (b)if the animal is somehow subject to a contract over which the secular ecclesiastical society has jurisdiction. —— (a)Suppose Freddie Limp-Wit takes his horse into a police station belonging to the general government. Suppose he there beats the horse with a cat-o'-nine-tails. Without a doubt, there would need to be some rules governing this secular property. Anything that constituted a major distraction to these police-people –– that would sidetrack them from doing their job –– would probably need to be restricted. So certain limited types of laws against mala prohibita would be lawfully applicable on such pieces of geographical jurisdiction. If, across the street from this police station, there was the geographical jurisdiction of a religious social compact, and Fred took his horse there and did the same thing, the secular social compact would not have jurisdiction, because it would lack subject matter jurisdiction, even if the religious social compact was within the umbrella geographical jurisdiction of the secular social compact. But on their turf, the secular police would reasonably have a legitimate reason for stopping Fred from abusing the horse, and for removing both the horse and Fred from the premises. But that's about the only penalty that they would be within reason to enforce. —— (b)Suppose Fred buys a horse from a stranger. Suppose the purchase agreement stipulates that the buyer will never perpetrate animal cruelty against the horse. Suppose the penalty stipulated for violation of this term is that the horse will automatically become the possession of the seller again, and there will be a 1000 "dollar" fine, payable to the seller. Now suppose that Fred is cruel to the horse. Suppose he beats the horse with a cat-o'-nine tails. Suppose the seller discovers this incident of animal cruelty. The seller brings an ex contractu action against Fred in a secular ecclesiastical court, to enforce the contract. Under this kind of condition, a secular social compact would have jurisdiction over Fred's case of animal cruelty.

Only these two kinds of situations would allow a secular government to have jurisdiction over animal cruelty. So secular governments should repeal all animal cruelty laws –– other than these types of limited positive laws. Given our history, this probably sounds appalling to many people. We can think about how cock fights, dog fights, dog-and-bear fights, starvation of livestock, and many other types of "animal cruelty" that are now illegal, would be legalized. Surely there is no redeeming moral value to allowing these things, and they should remain illegal. Or should they? —— Generally, what is moral to one person is disgusting to another. As we scan all the things that would become legal under the standard set by the investigation, most people will applaud some, and be absolutely disgusted by others. But legal neutrality does not imply moral approval. It just removes the enforcement of morality out of the hands of secular police, and puts it into the hands of religious social compacts. These issues essentially pertain to religious police powers, not to secular police powers.

What should Bible-believing Christians do regardless of what secular governments do? —— God has called us to be a covenant-keeping people, meaning that we who volunteer to follow His ways voluntarily obligate ourselves to live in religious social compacts with one-another. We are called to be good stewards of what God gives us. All religious social compacts formed by Bible-believing Christians should therefore have religious police powers to curtail and punish culpable people within the respective geographical