Book Review -- Faith Seeking Freedom: Libertarian Christian Answers to Tough Questions

BOOK REVIEW — Faith Seeking Freedom: Libertarian Christian Answers to Tough Questions

129 pages, by Dr. Norman Horn, Doug Stuart, Kerry Baldwin, and Dick Clark

FULL DISCLOSURES:

• Kerry Baldwin has been a Facebook friend for several years now.
  
  
• I don't profess to be a Christian of any denomination or sect or whatever. Organized religion and I simply don't do well together.

With those out of the way . . . .

Faith Seeking Freedom is easy reading, in that the authors don't try to cram you chock-full of data and information and jargon, such that you would feel overwhelmed by it all.

When the authors cite Biblical content, they put the citation right there in the same paragraph as the point that they're making, so you don't have to keep flipping back and forth to the end of the chapter or the end of the book. This is probably for the best where electronic versions are concerned. Also, for those inclined to have a Bible nearby to check on the authors, it's right there where you can compare and contrast the authors' points against the Bible verse(s) itself.

The authors don't attempt to take sides where the big divisions of libertarian thought occur, such as the minarchy vs. anarchy debate, or whether or not to be involved in the LP, with the exception of the abortion issue.

SPECIFIC POINTS —

[Page numbers cited here are what listed is on the particular page. The actual pages on the PDF version that I used for this review will be that number, plus 10 pages.]

Chapter 2 (The Libertarian Basics, pp. 23-34) gives the reader a decent summary of the Non-Aggression Principle and how it applies to everyday life.

p. 26, part of the answer to Question #13 (How do libertarian Christians account for people who violate the non-aggression principle (NAP)?) takes on the minarchy vs. anarchy question rather well — the authors explain both sides without explicitly favoring one side or the other. (Disclosure: I personally lean towards the anarcho-capitalist side.)

p.39, Question #25 (Do libertarians believe any and every government is illegitimate?) also tackles the minarchy vs. anarchy adroitly, explaining both sides without favoring one or the other.

pp. 67-68 give a succinct and principled response to the "What about roads?" shibboleth.

OK, enough spoilers.

Do me a favor Do yourself a favor — Go and get a copy and read it for yourself.

SUMMARY —

Faith Seeking Freedom is an easy-to-read, principled guide for Christians who are seeking to understand libertarianism, on par with Inclined to Liberty by Louis Carabini, The Law by Frederic Bastiat, or Down With Power by L. Neil Smith.

Go get a copy, read it, then tell your friends and family.

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NOTES

1. Reposted —
   
   
   1. Personal blogs and micro-blogs — Diaspora* / Facebook page / Flote / Gab / Goodreads / Gorf Social / Liberty.me / Minds / Pocketnet / Spreely page / Twitter / VK / Wimkin page / Wordpress / YouMe Social
      
      
   2. Albuquerque Liberty Forum — Facebook page / Spreely page
      
      
   3. KCUF Media — Facebook page / Spreely page
      
      
   4. New Mexico Libertarians — Facebook group / Facebook page / Minds group / Spreely group / Spreely page / Wimkin group / Wimkin page
      
      
   5. The Old Drunken Old Irrvelivents — Facebook page / Spreely page
      
      
   6. The Weekly Sedition — Facebook page / Spreely page / Twitter / Wimkin page / Wordpress

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Copyright © 2020 Mike Blessing. All rights reserved.
Produced by KCUF Media, a division of Extropy Enterprises.
This blog entry created with Notepadqq and Notepad++.

Book Review -- SSN, by Tom Clancy and Martin Greenberg

SSN by Tom Clancy and Martin Greenberg

Berkley mass-market edition – Feburary, 2000, softcover, 351 pages

ISBN 0-495-17353-4

When Tom Clancy takes a direct hand in writing the books with his name on the cover, they're usually pretty good. When the writing task is handed off to someone else, it's a crapshoot as to whether you'll end up with a good read. Luckily, SSN seems to be one of the former.

SSN was based upon a CD-ROM game of the same name^[1]. Both the book and game are concerned with the U.S.S. Cheyenne^[2], a Los Angeles class nuclear-powered attack submarine of the U.S. Navy, commanded by a Captain Bartholomew "Mack" Mackey, as the Cheyenne goes into combat against the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy, which is the naval branch of the People's Liberation Army^[3].

The Cheyenne starts off by engaging a Han class submarine^[4] near Hawaii, but most of the book takes place as the Cheyenne goes up against various subs and surface ships of the PLAN in and around the Spratly Islands, as China wants to establish oil-prospecting operations there.

For what it's worth, the Spratlys are currently claimed by not only China, but also Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan. Most if not all of these nations are after the oil and natural gas deposits that are suspected to be under the Spratlys^[5].

The "interview" (more properly called a "conversation" or "chat") at the back of the book reveals that the game the book is based upon offers fifteen (15) different situations for the user to undertake, playing the role of "Mack," and that while completing all of them successfully won't qualify the user to actually command an attack sub in rela-life combat, they will get a taste of what it's like. One of the participants, a Captain Doug Littlejohn, CBE (retired) from the British Royal Navy, says that the main liberty taken with the game (and thus the book) was that of time compression – tasks that take hours or days in real life are squeezed into seconds and minutes for the sake of the game, simply to avoid putting the user to sleep.

All in all, it was worth the ∅2 that I paid for it at the used bookstore.

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FOR FURTHER REFERENCE

1. Tom Clancy's SSN (CD-ROM game)
   
   
2. U.S.S. Cheyenne (SSN-773)
   
   
3. People's Liberation Army Navy
   
   
4. Han class submarine
   
   
5. Spratly Islands

NOTES

1. Reposted –
   
   
   1. Personal blogs and micro-blogs – Facebook / Google Plus / Tumblr / Twitter / Wordpress / Xanga

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Copyright © 2013 Mike Blessing. All rights reserved.
Produced by KCUF Media, a division of Extropy Enterprises.
This blog entry created with Notepad++.

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