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Title: The War on Some Drugs
Source: Lew Rockwell
URL Source: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2017/09 ... casey/the-war-on-some-drugs-3/
Published: Sep 9, 2017
Author: Doug Casey
Post Date: 2017-09-09 11:55:31 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 7531
Comments: 29

Drugs are a charged subject everywhere. They’re a “hot button” topic. Everyone has a strong opinion, often irrational, that seems to come from deep in the most reactive recesses of their collective minds.

Longtime readers know that although I personally abstain from drugs and generally eschew the company of abusive users, I think they should be 100% legal. Not just cannabis. All drugs.

The most important reason is moral and ethical. Your primary possession is your own body. If you don’t own it, and don’t have a right to do whatever you want with it, then you in fact have no rights at all. That’s the main reason why the drug war itself is criminal, and morally insane. The economic, medical, practical, and many other reasons to repeal prohibition are important, but strictly secondary.

Few people consider how arbitrary, and historically recent, the current prohibition is; until the Harrison Act was passed in 1914, heroin and cocaine were both perfectly legal and easily obtainable over the counter.

Before that, very few people were addicted to narcotics, even though narcotics were available to anybody at the local corner drugstore. Addicts were just looked down on as suffering from a moral failure, and a lack of self-discipline. But since there was no more profit in heroin than in aspirin, there was no incentive to get people to use it. So there were no cartels or drug gangs.

Drugs are no more of a problem than anything else in life; life is full of problems. In fact, life isn’t just full of problems; life is problems. What is a problem? It’s simply the situation of having to choose between two or more alternatives. Personally, I believe in people being free to choose, and I rigorously shun the company of people who don’t believe that. Drug addicts have a problem; drug “warriors” have a much more serious problem.

What we’re dealing with isn’t a medical problem, it’s a psychological, even a spiritual, problem. And a legal problem, because self-righteous busybodies keep passing laws—with very severe penalties—regulating what people can or can’t do with their own bodies. It’s part of the general degradation of civilization that I’ve been putting my finger on over the last few years.

Hysteria and propaganda aside, the fact is that most recreational drugs pose less of a health problem than alcohol, nicotine, sugar, or a simple lack of exercise.

Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes (of whom I’m a great fan) was an aficionado of cocaine products. So was Sigmund Freud. Churchill is supposed to have drank a quart of whiskey daily. Dr. William Halsted, father of modern surgery and cofounder of Johns Hopkins University, was a regular user throughout his long and illustrious career, which included inventing local anesthesia after injecting cocaine into his skin. Thomas Edison, Charles Dickens, Philip K. Dick, Richard Feynman, Francis Crick, John Lilly, Kary Mullis, Carl Sagan… the list of famous and successful people who used various substances to enhance or alter their consciousness is very, very long. Just the ones we know of. But, in today’s world, they could all be doing serious time in a federal pen.

Let me re-emphasize that I’m not encouraging drug use. Some cloud the mind, others clear it. It’s up to you (or should be) to decide what you need or want, what’s good or bad. There are many hundreds of recreational drugs, with widely differing effects. Insofar as recreational drugs present a problem, it arises from overuse, which is hard to define and arbitrary. And can be true of absolutely anything.

People can become addicted to most anything—food, sugar, alcohol, gambling, sleep, sex—you name it. It’s not good when you do too much of absolutely anything. One thing is for sure: You take personal responsibility away from people, they become more, not less, irresponsible.

The so-called “drug problem” is solely due to the fact that recreational drugs are illegal.

Alcohol provides the classic example. Alcohol has been, by far, the most abused substance in the US throughout its history. But the enactment of Prohibition in 1920 not only made abuse worse (for a number of reasons), but created a crime wave, and essentially created the Cosa Nostra. Making a product illegal turns both users and suppliers into criminals, and only makes bluenoses and busybodies happy.

Because illegality makes any product vastly more expensive than it would be in a free market, some users resort to crime to finance their habits. Because of the risks and artificially reduced supply, the profits to the suppliers are necessarily huge—not the simple businessman’s returns to be had from legal products.

Just as Prohibition of the ’20s turned the Mafia from a small underground group of thugs into big business, the War on Drugs has done precisely the same thing for drug dealers. And is, by far, the major cause of corruption in law enforcement. It’s completely insane and totally counterproductive.

The government learned absolutely nothing from the failure of alcohol prohibition. What they’re doing with drugs makes an occasional, trivial problem into a national catastrophe.

Frankly, if you want to worry about drugs, it would be more appropriate to be concerned about the scores of potent psychiatric drugs from Ritalin to Prozac that are actively pushed in the US, often turning users into anything from zombies, to space cadets, to walking time bombs.

The whole drill impresses me as being so perversely stupid as to border on the surreal. Insofar as the Drug War diminishes supply of product, it raises prices. The higher the prices, the higher the profits. And the higher the profits, the greater the inducement to youngsters anxious to get into the game. The more successful it is in imprisoning people, the more new people it draws into the business to replace them.

The only answer to the War on Drugs is the same as that to the equally stupid and destructive War on Demon Rum fought during the ’20s—a complete repeal of prohibition, and unregulated legalization.

Will it happen? Not likely. The DEA, FBI, CIA, and numerous state and local agencies, and the drug dealers themselves, have way too big an interest in keeping drugs illegal. But the impending decriminalization and legalization of pot everywhere is a step in the right direction.

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#1. To: Deckard (#0)

Your primary possession is your own body. If you don’t own it, and don’t have a right to do whatever you want with it,

There can be no unlimited rights, or society will collapse on that one right. You do not absolutely own your body and you cannot do anything your want with it.

Specifically, you do not have the right to infect it with terrible communicable diseases and walk around Times Square.

You do not have the right to refuse to take your body into combat if you've been drafted into military service, and you don't have the right to not have your body drafted.

You do not have the right to walk your body into somebody else's house.

You don't have the right to play with your own sexual organs in public.

You don't have the right to not cover your private parts in clothes and walk down the streets naked.

You don't have the right to squat and take a dump on the sidewalk.

You don't have the right to sell your organs to the highest bidder.

In short, you don't own your body absolutely. You possess it and have vast, but nevertheless limited, rights in its use and possession.

This is true under the human law because it has to be, lest civilization fall to pieces.

It's true a fortiori under the law of God.

Vicomte13  posted on  2017-09-09   12:19:50 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: Deckard (#0)

until the Harrison Act was passed in 1914, heroin and cocaine were both perfectly legal and easily obtainable over the counter.

Yep, they were. And they were becoming a problem, as "an estimated one U.S. citizen in 400 was addicted to some form of opium"

misterwhite  posted on  2017-09-09   14:57:58 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#3. To: Deckard (#0)

I think they should be 100% legal. Not just cannabis. All drugs.

Right. As does about 6% of the population -- current drug users.

misterwhite  posted on  2017-09-09   15:30:00 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#4. To: misterwhite (#2)

The government learned absolutely nothing from the failure of alcohol prohibition. What they’re doing with drugs makes an occasional, trivial problem into a national catastrophe.

“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul

Those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.

Deckard  posted on  2017-09-09   16:07:28 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#5. To: Deckard (#4)

The government learned absolutely nothing from the failure of alcohol prohibition.

Just as you learned nothing from the repeal of Prohibition. Crime didn't go away. The gangs didn't go away. Smuggling didn't go away. Trafficking didn't go away.

No police officers were fired because we no longer need them. No judges fired. No courtrooms closed. No prisons demolished. No money saved.

Yet you insist all these things will happen if we would simply legalize marijuana. What a crock.

misterwhite  posted on  2017-09-09   17:59:23 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#6. To: misterwhite (#5)

Yet you insist all these things will happen if we would simply legalize marijuana. What a crock.

I don't think the legalisation of marijuana is really the issue. There are some drugs that are dangerous not just to the users but for the effects they have as a result steroids are a case in point with numerous cases of rage, so is ice, a metamphietime, these things are rightly banned. Marijuana unfortunately is a pathway to stronger substances, and the use of those causes addicts to seek criminal activity to feed the addiction

legalisation and taxation of the substance in a fully regulated environment is a better method of control than the so called war. Decriminalisation of use would prevent many broken lives and law enforcement could persist in pursuit of illegal suppliers. Addiction is a medical problem for all abused substances including tobacco

paraclete  posted on  2017-09-09   23:01:35 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#7. To: Vicomte13 (#1)

You do have a right not to fight in combat. For someone who claims to be ... You sure are a statist.

A K A Stone  posted on  2017-09-10   8:19:48 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#8. To: A K A Stone (#7)

Yes, I am a statist. It is a self-evident truth that, without the state, we would be living much shorter, nastier, violent and ignorant lives. Most of us would be enslaved by some stronger invader - name me a European people that was not enslaved or reduced to serfdom by another. They all were, in their turn. The state is the vehicle by which people are successfully organized for war, to be able to maintain greater liberty than in a tribal state (which is the state of nature - not independent individualism - that doesn't exist in a state of nature: the pack lives, but the lone wolf dies).

So yes, I am a statist, and have always said so.

I want my state to be well organized, not ramshackle and wasteful. I want the sewers to work and the garbage collection to be on time, and the dumps where the garbage goes to be regulated. That makes all of our lives longer and better.

I want the army and the navy and the air force to be strong and effective, well organized, well trained and well commanded. That keeps the state independent of other states.

I want the laws to be reasonable and egalitarians. There is always a "Law of the Elite" above the Common Law, and a "Law of the Low" for those at the bottom, but I want those laws to at least in principle merely be the differences in application of the law thanks to police and prosecutorial discretion, as opposed to rigid separate systems of law.

I want the state to ensure universal public education, health care, and retirement stipends, unemployment benefits and disability insurance - and to provide subsistence-level welfare for those who need it.

I want the state regulating the financial markets, lest bankers repeatedly blow up the world and render masses of people in poverty, as happened cyclically every 30 years or so before the state regulated the financial industry. Yes, we still have booms and busts, but with a social welfare state and regulation of the industry, the busts are not as bad as they used to be, and nobody starves when they happen. That was not true before. A strong, intelligent state makes things better.

I want the state to regulate the environment, lest the unregulated free market turn us into what we had before: mercury in the lakes, toxic waste poured into the canals and houses built on them, motor oil poured down the public drains, filthy air, dying Great Lakes - all of it.

The state has been successful at prolonging and improving human life. The absence of a functional state plunges everybody into the African darkness of mob rule and tribalism. The absence of a democratic, egalitarian state turns us all into pawns into the "game of thrones" that was old Europe, or turns many of us into chattel slaves, as was old America.

I want my state to be respectable enough and held in high enough esteem by the people who have to live in it that they feel attached to it and become angry when its symbols are treated with disrespect - for example by sports figures refusing to stand for the national anthem.

Your hatred of the state is unreasoning and unreasonable.

Vicomte13  posted on  2017-09-10   8:39:57 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#9. To: Vicomte13 (#8) (Edited)

I don't hate the state. I just don't worship it instead of god like you do. Your god is the state not Christ.

You have no faith in Christ to take care of his people. You think the state has to steal from me to give to people like you.

Jesus never once took from someone who didn't want to give. You think the state should be able to steal half someone's wealth and give it to a lesser person who didn't work or try as hard. In short you profess yourself to be wise but you aren't wise at all.

A K A Stone  posted on  2017-09-10   8:45:12 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#10. To: Vicomte13 (#8) (Edited)

You lie when you want the state to provide subsistence level welfare. You want lazy people to be able to get any and every benefit for free but others pay for it. Assholes like you are ok with people like me getting screwed on healthcare with thousands of dollars of deductables making it almost worthless. But loser lazy asses get it for free. Hey fuck you vic.

A K A Stone  posted on  2017-09-10   8:49:59 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#11. To: Vicomte13 (#8)

I want less government lest asshole who cannot think such as yourself enslave us all.

A K A Stone  posted on  2017-09-10   8:54:04 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#12. To: Vicomte13 (#8)

You want you want. You claim to be such a good god follower. Where does it say you get all those costly wants that someone else has to pay for.

A K A Stone  posted on  2017-09-10   9:02:03 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#13. To: Vicomte13 (#8)

You cannot have two masters. You have chosen the state as yours. You want it to be everyone elses master too.

A K A Stone  posted on  2017-09-10   9:07:05 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#14. To: A K A Stone (#9)

You have no faith in Christ to take care of his people.

Christ does not treat Chrsitans' diabetes or cancer. He let's them bear that cross, die, and come to him.

Similarly for starvation. Christ lets hundreds of millions of Christans starve to death. They bear their cross to the end and have their reward in the next life.

Christ never promised health and happiness in this life - in fact, he promised that those things won't be found here.

So you're right - I have absolutely no belief at all that Christ will reach down from heaven and protect Christians from any diseases, or marauding enemies, or starvation, or natural disaster - because he DOESN'T protect us from any of things, and never said he would. Our reward for staying true to him is found on the other side, in the afterlife, not HERE.

If you have diabetes here, praying to Christ will keep you faithful to him to the end and win you the afterlife, but you're still going to lose your foot in THIS life, because Christ isn't going to lift a finger to protect you from the natural law, or from the marauding of other men. You have to help yourself in this life - Christ holds out the promise of happiness in the afterlife if, in the process of helping yourself in this one you don't do great evil, and you remember him and try to do what he said. That's the deal.

That Christ substitutes for human government in this life is impiety. It is ignoring what he really said, and adding nonsense to it that he never said.

Christ will not govern your country. He won't save you from malaria, or hurricanes, or earthquakes, or Nazis. He will have compassion on you, and receive your soul when they kill you, but he won't stop them from killing you, he won't drive off your diseases if you drink contaminated water, and he won't make hurricane Irma spare your life. He might on a one-off basis, but Christians at large get no pass, at all, from natural law.

Christ's deal is not about here.

Vicomte13  posted on  2017-09-10   10:30:00 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#15. To: paraclete (#6)

legalisation and taxation of the substance in a fully regulated environment is a better method of control than the so called war.

Legalization of what drugs? Just marijuana? What about other "soft drugs" like LSD, Ecstasy, GHB, peyote, shrooms, nitrous, ketamine, or rohypnol?

To what age group? Over 21? Over 18? Over 16? Keep in mind that drug dealers will continue to sell any drug not made legal, and will sell all drugs to those who are underage.

Finally, legalization at what level? State? Federal? State level obviously won't work. It didn't for alcohol. So legalization at the federal level? Well, that's what we have now. Except the people decided to make them illegal.

misterwhite  posted on  2017-09-10   10:31:59 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#16. To: Vicomte13 (#14)

So Catholics also ignore verses in the Bible like 2 Corinthians 9:8.

And make up shit out of thin air like priests not marrying which the Bible forbids and callers evil if I recall correctly.

You're an idiot.

A K A Stone  posted on  2017-09-10   10:41:18 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#17. To: A K A Stone (#13)

You have a very strong opinion, one that doesn't work in the real world.

When God made Israel, he didn't promise that he would keep them free of disease and starvation, he promised them those things IF... and then he laid out a set of laws for the state and the individual within it.

We're not Hebrews, so there is not one thing in the Law of Moses, including the Ten Commandments, that was laid upon us. And we won't get the divine protections God promised the Hebrews if we do those things.

But though they are not binding on us, they were nevertheless conceived in the perfect mind of God with his perfect wisdom, and if we emulate those things we are very likely to have a more favorable outcome than if we do something different.

Jesus did lay laws upon us, but the nature of these laws and principles concerned the final reward in the afterlife. Unlike YHWH, Jesus didn't give the governing structures for a state. He gave the pathway to passing final judgment, not the constitution for a civil state. And he never promised that if you follow him you won't get diabetes and won't be poor and need help.

In any case, there's no conversation here, just a one-sided stream of insults. We're never going to get anywhere, and I have more productive things to do with my day than be your punching bag.

Vicomte13  posted on  2017-09-10   10:48:51 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#18. To: Vicomte13 (#17)

Why did Jesus say he didn't come to destroy the law... But to fulfill it?

I do agree with some of your comments in this reply of yours. Keyboard is to clumsy to be more specific.

A K A Stone  posted on  2017-09-10   10:55:45 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#19. To: A K A Stone, Vicomte13 (#18) (Edited)

Why did Jesus say he didn't come to destroy the law... But to fulfill it?

Now that is a great question and as Vic only wants to talk about what Jesus said he should have a view on this one.

My view on this is that we couldn't fulfill the law our selves and so Jesus did it for us and to appropriate that you have to believe in Jesus and his way. The way Christ taught isn't the way the church became with its hierarchy and its priests getting in the way of the Christ/believer interface.

I am concerned that Vic has an idea that YHWH and Jesus are not the same and that is contrary to what Jesus told us.Vic said;

"Jesus did lay laws upon us, but the nature of these laws and principles concerned the final reward in the afterlife. Unlike YHWH, Jesus didn't give the governing structures for a state. He gave the pathway to passing final judgment, not the constitution for a civil state. And he never promised that if you follow him you won't get diabetes and won't be poor and need help."

Vic, Jesus didn't have to do these things because YHWH had already done it. As far as illness is concerned Jesus provided a way for healing, just as it had been available for centuries

paraclete  posted on  2017-09-10   21:46:57 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#20. To: misterwhite (#15)

Legalization of what drugs?

all drugs, available on prescription, or regulated like alcohol, or tobacco. I think there has been too much dope consumption over there, it has fried your brains

paraclete  posted on  2017-09-10   21:59:59 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#21. To: paraclete (#20)

all drugs

Where will you get the votes for that? Nobody (other than drug users) want all drugs to be legal.

misterwhite  posted on  2017-09-11   9:18:33 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#22. To: misterwhite (#21)

Where will you get the votes for that? Nobody (other than drug users) want all drugs to be legal.

I would have thought that it might have sunk in by now that all the war on drugs has done is make a boom in the prison industry. The supply is greater now than it was when the problem was identified, surely it is obvious this is not working. The war on drugs has produced many criminals.

Prohibition didn't work, all it did was entrench crime, and this prohibition doesn't work

paraclete  posted on  2017-09-11   9:41:14 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#23. To: paraclete (#19) (Edited)

Paraclete, go read The Law. Actually go read it. It runs from Exodus through Deuteronomy, then it stops. The Law starts to be given to Moses at the burning bush, and it's done being given at the end of Deuteronomy when Moses dies. No more law is given in the Old Testament. "The Law" is the Law of Moses.

If you want to have a discussion with me about it, then you need to go read it again, all of it.

I want you to pay attention specifically to what "The Law" is. It is a Covenant, a contract.

I want you to look at who the parties are to the contract.

Your neighbor has a contract with the bank to provide a mortgage on his house. They provide him money by which he acquires his house. He returns the money to them, with interest. There are certain obligations upon him (e.g.: He has to keep fire insurance on the house, so that the bank doesn't lose its collateral in a disaster.) And there are certain obligations upon the bank (e.g.: no matter how desperate the bank's business becomes, the bank cannot get its money back from the homeowner any sooner than contracted unless the homeowner decides to make additional payments).

So now let me ask you: what obligations does the bank have to you under your neighbor's mortgage? What obligations do you have to the bank under your neighbor's mortgage. What obligation does either member of a covenant have to somebody outside of it? What obligations do people who are not part of a contract have to the people who make a contract?

The answer to all of those question is: None. If you're not part of a contract, you're not part of it. The contracting parties cannot drag you into the contract unless you sign onto its terms. And you cannot gatecrash the contract and demand to be treated like a party if those were not the terms.

Now review the Covenant between God and Israel again. Who are the contracting parties to the covenant? What specifically is the promise?

Make a list, as you read, of where in the Covenant that God promised the Hebrews life after death, eternal life, passing final judgment, and living with God eternally in the City of God afterwards. You will need that list to be able to discuss the issues with me.

What's that? There's nothing on the list? God never once mentions final judgment, heaven, eternal life, anything remotely like that in The Law? Hmmmm.

Ok, well, perhaps then that wasn't part of The Law when it was given, but now it is.

No. Go back and read the Law again, and also what Jesus said about The Law. Can anything, anything at all, be ADDED to the Law? What happens to those who ADD to the Law, according to the Law? Nothing can be added to the Law, on pain of curses.

So, once you've reviewed the Law, and once you've re-read Jesus saying that nothing in the Law will change, show me the part in the law that says it applies to you or me. The Law SAYS to whom it applies - Hebrews at Sinai and their circumcised linear heirs. You and I are not parties to the contract, and not one letter of Law can be changed. Jesus did not change the Law to add us to it.

Once you've gone back and reread the Law, so that you realize that Gentiles were never under the Law from the beginning, were offered nothing by the Law. The Law never applied to us and still doesn't.

And no Jew who followed the law perfectly was ever going to get eternal life from it, because eternal life was never on offer under the Law.

Jews found themselves in torment over the juxtaposition of the Law and Jesus, because they taught themselves, through their tradition, that the Law was about an afterlife that they came to believe in LATER, AFTER the Law was given. So they, naturally, tried to extend that which was given to encompass these new things they were worried about.

But in doing so, they were merely adding to The Law, which can't be done. The Law, if followed, would have gotten an ancient Jew a farm in Israel, and nothing more. The Law, if followed, never got a Gentile anything. It doesn't apply to Gentiles in the first place, and if a Gentile became a Jew to follow it, at the end of it all he might get a farm in Israel - if the other Jews in Israel followed it.

THAT is all that the Law ever offered anybody. And Jesus tells you that that's all it ever WILL offer anybody, because Jesus reminds everybody that not a letter of the law can change: Salvation is not IN the Law, and it CANNOT BE ADDED TO THE LAW.

The Law has nothing to do with Salvation - if you say it does, go back and read the absolutely unchangeable law and CITE THE PLACE where it does.

Go re-read the Law. It NEVER does. Therefore, per Jesus, it doesn't have to do with Salvation. It has to do only with what it says it has to do with: a farm in Israel. Go back and read it, and you will see.

Once you've done that reading, come back and try to have the same conversation you wanted to have, per that message above. You will find that you can't.

Why did Jesus say that he didn't come to destroy the law but to complete it? Because he completed it. Go to Deuteronomy and look at the warnings to the Hebrews for disobedience. Now look at the end of Jesus' ministry, when he stands in the Temple court and says it will all be torn down, and gives the parable of the vineyard and the bad tenants.

Jesus completed the law: by declaring the time had come for the penalty clauses of the Law to be carried out, and for the Jews to be ripped up and hurled from Israel.

Jesus led a flock away from the destruction - those who followed him.

"Church" - ekklesia - means "those called out of an assembly". The herd of Jewry followed their leaders into Perdition, and were driven from the vineyard in fulfillment of the covenant. The fig tree, Israel, was doomed by Jesus to dry up, under the penalty clauses of the Covenant/Law. Jesus' flock were "those called out" of the assembly.

But that was for THAT sheepfold - Jewry.

We are Gentiles - the OTHER sheep in OTHER sheepfolds, who ALSO know the Master's voice. The Jews had some difficult things to work out. For us, it was much simply to follow Jesus as Jesus spoke - we didn't have the earlier contract with God that we had to somehow coordinate with the new information.

So, "we couldn't fulfill the law ourselves"? We never were under the law, and God never asked us to follow it at all. We're not Hebrews. God told US to follow Jesus. He never gave the Law to us, and the Law itself says it doesn't apply to us - we're not in the convenant at all. Jesus said that the covenant cannot be changed, not a word of it - so we did not suddenly get edited into the covenant by Jesus: that would be a change, and there will be no change.

Jesus brought us to God through a NEW covenant. The old one does not apply to Gentiles at all, it never did, and it never can until the end of the world, because Jesus said that the Law can never, ever change. We weren't under it before - go READ it before you argue we were: we clearly are not - and to say we are now is to call Jesus a liar, because to say we are is to change the law. Which will never happen.

The Law was the Law FOR HEBREWS. It NEVER applied to us. Go read it. Then come back.

There's no point arguing the Law with me if you don't know the Law.

Vicomte13  posted on  2017-09-11   9:53:09 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#24. To: Vicomte13 (#23)

The Law was the Law FOR HEBREWS. It NEVER applied to us. Go read it. Then come back.

I see now you don't want to talk about Jesus, you want to talk about the Law. I didn't say anything about the law other than Jesus forfilled it.

paraclete  posted on  2017-09-11   18:06:13 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#25. To: paraclete (#24)

You said that Jesus "fulfilled the Law for us."

No, he did not. We were never under the Law, not before Jesus, not after Jesus. Jesus completed the Law FOR THE JEWS, not for us. We had nothing to do with the Law.

The law required blood sacrifices for the forgiveness of JEWISH sins IN ISRAEL UNDER THE LAW, so that Jews could partake of the sacrifices, which were FOR JEWS, only, SO THAT they could peacefully remain in the land of Israel.

Gentiles were never under the law. We never required the blood sacrifices of animals to forgive our sins. Jesus changed that for the Jews under the Law. He didn't change it for us. He gave his blood as the lamb for the Jews - because they needed that to complete their Law.

But we were not under the Law, so Jesus did not "fulfill the Law for us" - we never had anything to do with the Law. Jesus did not, therefore, "fulfill" for us something that never applied to us at all.

I DO want to talk about Jesus, and part of that conversation means that, as far as law is concerned, the Old Testament ends for us at Genesis 10, and doesn't pick up again for us until Matthew 1. All of that Law, all of that sacrifice, all of those Psalms and Davidic monarchic things, and promises to Israel - all of it - that was for Israel, not for you and me. Jesus was not the sacrificial lamb under the Law for you and me, because we were not under the Law. We needed no sacrificial lamb. God can, and has, simply forgiven us because we ask.

Jews required more, because they were under the Law - and because they needed to be weaned from the Law by Jesus' completion of it. Jesus did not bring us under the Law.

The Law has nothing to do with us. So we cannot start our conversation with a "Jesus fulfilled the Law for us", because that's not true. Jesus fulfilled the Law for THEM - the Jews. We were never under it in the first place, we were not brought under it. Jesus didn't fulfill anything for us under the Law. What he did was offer us something new under the sun: the promise of the afterlife, of life with God, of joy - of knowing the truth.

These were not things offered to Jews under the Law. Jesus completed that Law. Now the only thing on offer, to Jews and Gentiles alike, is the same thing: a path to eternal life in God's City after death. That wasn't mentioned in the Law. To complete the Law, Jesus had to fulfill the parts of it. That was crucial FOR THE JEWS. It's irrelevant to you and me...unless you are under the impression that we're under the Law, or were under the Law. We're not, and we never were. So no, Jesus did not fulfill the Law for US.

It's an important point. It means that consulting the Old Testament after Genesis 10 to know what we are to do, what God's law is for US, is a barren exercise. None of that after Noah is law for us. Not a word of it.

To know what God wants of us, and not get mired in The Law not for us, the Gentile can read through Genesis 10, then pick up again at Matthew 1. Then we're actually talking about Jesus.

Shall we?

Vicomte13  posted on  2017-09-11   19:19:53 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#26. To: Vicomte13, paraclete (#25)

Why does the pope have occult symbols on his occult "mitre hat of Dagan"

A frickin pentagram.

A K A Stone  posted on  2018-03-22   12:24:32 ET  (1 image) Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#27. To: A K A Stone (#26)

A frickin pentagram.

Hexagram ie; the star of David, is not a pentagram. By your theory the Jews are the followers of Satan. The star of David has six points, the pentagram has five but then you obviously don't know Greek.

paraclete  posted on  2018-03-22   19:25:35 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#28. To: paraclete (#27)

There is no star of David. That is not biblical as far as I know. I will concede I could be wrong and I will listen if you show me good evidence.

A K A Stone  posted on  2018-03-22   19:33:17 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#29. To: A K A Stone (#28)

This star symbol is used in a many cultures, it was also known as the Seal of Solomon. I never suggested it was biblical although there are references to stars

Some scriptures

You have lifted up the shrine of your king, the pedestal of your idols, the star of your god— which you made for yourselves.

Now write another decree in the king’s name in behalf of the Jews as seems best to you, and seal it with the king’s signet ring—for no document written in the king’s name and sealed with his ring can be revoked.

paraclete  posted on  2018-03-23   1:51:40 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


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