Friday, 25 January 2008

In Defense of Voluntary Immigration

In a world with solely private property, to move from one piece of land to another you would need the permission from the landowner to move to it, or through it. Therefore all labour movements-immigration and emigration- would obviously be voluntary or invasionary. With all labour movements voluntary the market would provide the optimal amount of immigration. Some areas would allow people from many different cultures into their areas, such as cities, while others would attempt to maintain an ethno-cultural homogeneity.

Now with public land immigration is not voluntary; it becomes forced intergration since immigrants enter areas without consent by using public parks and especially public roads. They can thus skip from one place to the other and infringing on property rights. These "public" lands are not state owned but owned by the net taxpayers. So in essence the UK is a sort of forced residential golf club. Nobody else has any right to be there unless they are invited or buy one plot of the Golf club- buying real estate- and since they latter needs to parties to agree then this is invited immigration. In the former case however the immigrant would have signed in the guest book and because I was willing to take him in I would have to take responsibility of him for wages, housing and crime: if he smashed up the club house I would be responsible because I was the one who invited him in; this does not however preclude me then taking legal action against my guest.

With free trade both parties invite reciprocally the trade and bear the costs of their actions. With immigration this does not happen and the only way to make it comparable to it is to introduce the Hoppeian pass system: a current resident issues a pass to a foreigner without which they would not be allowed entrance; this would detail the length of stay and would guarantee that I the inviter would bear the full costs of the immigrant.

This would entail that any immigrant who could not acquire a pass from a resident would have to be deported to their country of origin. This is the only way, in the presence of public land, to make immigration voluntary. This is though a second best solution. The optimal solution is to give the public property back to the owners (probably via shares in a newly created firm) and return to a fully private property society where everything would be voluntary; where it is not sanctions would be imposed against the trespassers. This is in stark contrast to today where the state, an inherent rights violator (see Anarchy is Not Chaos post below) imposes sanctions on innocents who refuse to pay them tribute.
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Tuesday, 15 January 2008

The Economic and Social Costs of Drug Prohibition

Modern drug prohibition, in the USA, began with the Harrison Narcotics Act in 1914 which banned the sale of opium, it derivatives, and cocaine. This was followed by further tightening with the tax and subsequent ban of cannabis, and the prohibition of the manufacture of heroin1; between 1920-33 prohibition of alcohol was in force. The passage of the Dangerous Drug Acts (DDA) in 1920 marked the start of prohibition of drugs in the UK which imposed severe restrictions on the use and sale of opium and the proscription of heroin, morphine and cocaine. The DDA amendment was passed in 1923 which toughened the sanctions on offenders and increased the police’s search powers.2 All current drug legislation in the UK and USA has its origins in these acts.


The rationale behind prohibition is paternal in nature: drugs are bad for one’s health and can subsequently harm others while under the influence of said drugs.3 These two propositions are undeniably true. Heroin use can lead to collapsed veins, infection of the heart and liver disease4; it was also linked to 842 deaths in England and Wales in 2005.5 Cannabis increases the risk of heart attacks and bronchitis, as well as inducing short term memory loss making learning difficult. It also has an established link to schizophrenia and traces of cannabis have been found in 12% of road fatalities.6 Ellinwood found that LSD led directly to murders committed by those who had killed under the influence of it (Inciardi, 1981 P111).


However it does not follow from the fact that drugs are harmful that they should be banned. If it did, why should tobacco or alcohol not be banned also? Further, why should the state not protect the individual’s mind as well as the body? The banning of “harmful” books, paintings and films surely follows. Notwithstanding the internally contradictory position of the prohibitionists, they also fail to see the costs involved of pursuing such a policy.


The aim of prohibition is to reduce supply, and subsequently consumption; indeed every time a large haul of cocaine, or other drug, is caught it does indeed reduce the supply. Yet assuming a stable and an inelastic demand curve this leads to an increase in the price of the drug and higher profit opportunities. When the profit opportunity is higher than the risk (capture, fines, jail etc) involved then more of the good is produced. Thus every time drug enforcers have a huge success it is actually like taking drugs: it feels good at the time but produces more problems in the future. It is a self defeating policy.


The ineffectiveness of the law can be shown in that drug use in the 20th and 21st centuries has been far higher than the 19th century levels and is on the increase. In 1934, the first official statistic in the UK, the total number of addicts was only 300. In 1984 5,400 new addicts were registered.7 It is clear that legislation has failed to reduce drug use since it has risen pretty much since it was introduced. There must therefore be a reason for the increase in drug use which is independent of legislative environment; this is, however, outside the scope of this paper.


Prohibition creates a black market- a mutual voluntary action which is prohibited by the state- which causes manifold problems. It lacks enforceability of contracts. Unlike buying a chocolate bar one cannot take one’s drug dealer to court if your cocaine contains washing powder or it is a radically different strength than marketed. This, in general, prohibits the creation of branding which successfully solved the problem of impure goods in the 19th century; for example Cadbury and chocolate. Many deaths are caused by impure drugs.8 Also people have died in Glasgow and Bristol because the heroin they injected was exceptionally pure by street standards and thus overdosed (Stevenson, 1994 P31).


Further the lack of contact enforceability also creates a mutual distrust between consumer and dealer whereby the dealer wishes to defraud the consumer with the least pure good he can while the consumer wants the opposite. This mutual distrust has been cited as the cause of much of the violence between user and dealer. A study of heroin addicts seeking treatment found that of those who had died two thirds of them had been murdered mostly during or as a result of a deal (Inciardi, 1981 P113). As is well documented organised crime funds itself through drugs which allow them to continue their campaigns and also causes inter-gang conflict which leaves innocent civilians in the crossfire.9


Similarly the black market affects the potency of the drugs. During Prohibition the consumption of beer plummeted and the consumption of spirits and moonshine increased. The relative price of whiskey fell to that of beer- the price of beer increased by 600% while whiskey increased by only 310% (Thornton, 1991 P102). The severity of the sanctions against drug dealing depends on weight. This leads the traffickers to increase the potency of the drug and thus the value of the shipment to reduce the relative burden of the effective tax created by the judicial punishments. (Thornton, 1991 P96) Even if weight is neglected any increase in the sanctions against traffickers will lead to an increase in potency since they need to offset the risk with higher returns. Thornton speculates that if the sanctions against heroin were imposed on cannabis, cannabis would be as dangerous as heroin currently is (Thornton, 1991 P110).


The artificially high price of drugs leads to property crime. A study by the Liverpool Drug Dependency Unit found that between 1985-87 90% of heroin users financed their habit by shoplifting and burglary. One estimate of drug related theft was £2,000m in 1993 (Stevenson, 1994 P30). This does not include though the extra costs needed for extra security devices or the general perception of crime of the population. According to a government white paper 280,000 of problem drug users cause half the amount of recorded crime.10


Further, the high price leads users to inject over any other form of ingestion since it gives the most sensation per unit cost. And since 50% of users share needles this is major cause of HIV infections (Stevenson, 1994 P31).


The cost of drug related spending amounts to £1,483m in the 2005-6 period: £163m on services for young people, £380m on reducing the supply of drugs, £367m on reducing drug related crime; and £573m on drug treatment.11 As well as this huge cost, Benson argues that increased efforts to suppress illegal drugs have resulted in a decrease in the enforcement efforts against property crime and have thus resulted in an increase of it (Thornton, 1991 P120).


Prohibition creates a criminal problem on top of that of the medical one and does not reduce drug use. The costs of prohibition are so great that full legalisation of all drugs is necessary. It would take all the criminality out of the drugs trade and normal market forces would guarantee the quality and purity of the product. The deaths associated with drugs would fall as users could ingest without fear and with more information about the product. It would also cut the funding to many criminal gangs who fund themselves through drug money. Finally it would allow the police to use its scarce resources on what matters most to people: aggression against their person and property. The only conceivable problem with this is that drug use may increase. However since legislation has been ineffective and drugs, as a whole, almost certainly have an inelastic demand, this is highly unlikely; even if it did this would remain a purely medical rather than a criminal problem since the price would fall dramatically. Further voluntary exclusionary practices could mitigate the potential rise; the most powerful of these would be in the health insurance market, but this will not work at full effect while the State effectively controls the market.

3 For arguments against the legalisation of cannabis, which can be extended to all drugs, see “Going Soft on Cannabis” http://www.christian.org.uk/pdfpublications/gsoc.pdf accessed 18/12/07.

7 Ibid. Citing Edwards, G and Busch, C, Drug Problems in Britain- A Review of Ten Years and Home Office Statistical Bulletin: Statistics of the Misuse of Drugs in the United Kingdom 1985, Home Office, Issue 28/86, 25 September 1986, Table 5, Page 17

11 http://www.tdpf.org.uk/MediaNews_FactResearchGuide_EnforcementExpenditure.htm accessed 18/12/07

Books

  • Inciardi, James A. (Ed). The Drugs Crime Connection Sage Publication 1981

  • Stevenson, Richard. Winning the war on Drugs: To Legalise or Not? IEA 1994

  • Thornton, Mark. The Economics of Drug Prohibition University of Utah Press 1991

Websites

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Monday, 14 January 2008

What Actually is Racism?

With all the Ron Paul racism allegations it prompted me to think would be a cogent definition of racism. dictionary reference defines racism as :
1.a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2.a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3.hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.

Normally it is argued that if you discriminate on the basis of race this means your racist. So they give the example if you have two candidates for a job and the black one is "more highly qualified" than the white one and you choose the latter you are racist. Yet the more highly qualified statement, normally based on paper qualifications, doesn't hold since there are many other factors determining whether you'll be good at the job. So if the employer by economising information costs believes that the black man is more likely to be hard work, not fit in with the firm and more likely to go off sick then this is an entirely justified action. It is a similar mechanism that one uses of people from certain backgrounds or places do x or y. It is merely economising on information costs since information is expensive to acquire; if they make mistakes though they will be punished by the market. This also explains why when most people say " I dislike immigrants because...." it is about behaviour and what's associated with immigrant behaviour not them just being an immigrant. What this comes down to is culture; not race but is associated with it. And I think it is clear that an anarchist legal system is better than a statist one thus the former is a superior culture. But suppose the latter is associated with whites and the former with blacks and a white man says "I hate blacks because they're anarchist" is a cultural rather than race based statement. So no racism here.


Supposing though that the employer believed that the two candidates for the job were identical but chose the white man over the black. Is this racist? Well not necessarily. Is giving preferential treatment to your children and family racist? It is an inherently discriminatory act but no one ever calls this racist. But as is obvious races are merely an extrapolation of the family so it thus makes sense you will prefer the one more like you than less. So no racism here either.

Suppose that you are employing people in Saharan Africa and you have a policy of employing only blacks since they are more likely to have sickle cell anaemia than whites and thus not susceptible to malaria (I think I remember this correctly but it makes the point). This is now a decision solely based on race but again is not necessarily racist. It would be the same as appointing an able bodied man over a guy in a wheel chair to be in your rugby team because there physical attributes are going to determine how good they are. This of course leaves open to debated whether certain races are more intelligent than others in the same way that Negroes are in general stronger than whites- look at athletics. So no racism here.

The only possible cogent definition of racism is that one believes that another race is morally inferior to another. So one believes that another race is ontologically inferior and deserves to live less than his own race. So examples of this would be those of the eugenics movement who saw blacks as less evolved than whites and so were not to be afforded the same (legal) rights as whites.

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Tuesday, 30 October 2007

Anarchy is Not Chaos

After been asked what my political views are on Facebook I thought it would be a good time to air them. Just to make it clear the only question I will be answering will be what the least worst form of government we can have on earth is. I will not address how we should relate to the current government in existence; how we can move from the present state of affairs to a better one; or a general moral theory.


The basis of my political theory is the axiom of non-aggression- no one should aggress against the physical integrity of any person or their property; however for this to make any sense one needs a theory of property rights. The one I propose is a Neo-Lockean one: he owns himself since he is made in the image of God ; those previously unowned resources he appropriated by mixing his labour with them (the first comer principle or homesteading) and any goods that he voluntarily acquired, assuming the individual who traded it had title to that good i.e. the good has an unbroken chain of voluntary exchange back to its first appropriation. Just for clarity this refers to man's relationship to other men not to God since God ultimately owns everything. Further one needs a concept of what ownership implies. I will define it as the unilateral right to do what one wishes with his property unless it harms the physical integrity of someone else's property; if one does not have this then one cannot be said to own it. To clarify, ownership applies only to the physical properties of the good not their value- if I own a shop you can't burn it down but you can put me out of business by undercutting my prices.


If one rejects that one owns himself there are only two other possibilities of who owns him: someone else owns him or that everyone owns everyone else. Let us first take the latter- no-one could do anything without approval of everyone else, however in attempting to seek approval one must use his vocal chords which he cannot unilaterally do. Thus with this ethic no-one could do anything and everyone would die; hardly a moral ethical theory. The former ethic is slavery which implies the slave owner has the right to maim, dismember or even kill his slave since he is his property; again this seems vile to any right thinking man. Self ownership has it.


If one rejects the first comer principle one must accept the second or more principle. However to do so creates problems: firstly no-one would appropriate any resources since some else could legitimately take it out of his possession so the whole human race would starve; secondly even if he did appropriate some resources theft would be legitimate which would reduce man to perpetual warfare and a subsistence, at best, existence. So anything but the first comer principle legitimises theft and would destroy society. If one says that the worlds' resources are given to man in common then you run up against the same problem of everyone owning everyone else as in the above paragraph. Therefore the first comer principle is the only conceivable ethic.


Having ascertained that the only possible moral position (liberty) is self ownership, homesteading and none aggression let us look at what the State is: it is a territorial monopolist over arbitration and has the power to tax. By a monopolist I mean an individual or group which has legal privilege; other people are legally restricted from using their property in that way. As is obvious from this uncontroversial definition the State is in contradistinction to liberty since by being a monopolist it is saying that it owns you- having a State is a form of Slavery. It says you must go to them if you have a dispute between yourself and another man. Any talk of the State protecting property rights is nebulous since in its nature it is an expropriator- the State is a protection racket. It says unless you pay it tribute it will kick your door in and even kill you. Hardly a moral organisation. So the State must be abolished to have a moral political system.


Now having ascertained that private property anarchism, or free market anarchism, is the only moral form of political system what about the practical question: it would descend into chaos wouldn't it? If we have a two person society do we need a monopolist? Well no, most people say. If you say there are one thousand people they say yes. Following this logic a monopolist is always necessary, otherwise one would descend into Hobbesian chaos; thus a one world government is necessary otherwise, as at present, each state is in an anarchic relationship between each other and need a monopolist to hit them over the head. Let’s look at the incentives for the individual and the state: the former can only fund themselves by work and voluntary exchange and must bear the full costs of their actions. A state on the other hand can impose a monopoly price for justice and can shift the costs of their activities onto others via taxation. After looking at these incentives who would be the most responsible?


As is clear society wouldn't be chaotic but would be less violent than the current system. However how would a pure free market provide security and law. Before I attempt a brief answer, this is the same as asking how would a market produce shoes when the State has produced them for as long as anyone could remember. So in answering I can only give a tentative sketch.


Security is an easier question to answer. Currently most security is private: door locks, car alarms, security lights, shutters, bouncers, security guards and such like. And as the former provide many different forms of security so would the private security forces. You would pay a fee, as in everything else, to do many different functions you wished them to do- a daily foot patrol, car patrols and any other mix of services. Now, unlike a State police force, the private ones prime aim would be the return of the loot and compensation of the victim rather than the imprisoning of the offender at the cost of the victim. So if Joe Bloggs steals my TV then the prime aim of my security firm would be the return of my TV set. This is easy if I and Joe Bloggs are part of the same security force. But what if Joe Bloggs is part of another firm which disagrees that Joe stole my TV, wouldn't both firms just fight? Fighting is expensive and since both firms want to maintain their reputation and make a profit that is an unlikely course of events. More probable they would go to arbitration which leads into how a private legal system would work.


Under the private legal system both parties would have to agree to the judge, or judges, to arbitrate in the case. If he then convicts you and you don't like it and don't pay up this would render huge suspicion upon yourself, since a respected judge convicted you of a crime, and thus a lot of society would disassociate from you and not trade with you. Also the victor in the case could call upon a police force, as such, to enforce the judge’s decision. So come round and take your possessions and sell them to pay your debt.
But wouldn't those with most money win? If a judge got this reputation many plaintiffs or defendants would refuse, legitimately in the eyes of society, to be arbitrated by that judge.
Currently one has to pay a monopoly price for justice which is higher than what it would be under a free market and accounts for the bad service rendered by the monopolist.


So as I have shown a State is immoral and also unnecessary. For those interested in more detailed description of how a stateless would provide law and security read this chapter from Murray Rothbard's For a New Liberty. For some historical examples of a stateless societies see here: The Not so Wild Wild West and Mediaeval Iceland.

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Monday, 8 October 2007

Don't Believe the Inflation Figures

Inflation figures are said to be a measure of the price level. However what is the price level? This is normally calculated using a weighted basket of goods and calculates the change in prices over a time period, normally a year. However there are numerous problems with this approach. Firstly it fails to take into account changes in quality of goods- when deriving the price level it calculates the change in price of a good over the year however no-one can actually objectively determine that the good bought in the second year was identical to that of the first. Since quality, in this context, can only really be defined as “those properties to which the buyers and would be buyers pay-heed” and since these properties are in constant flux, determined by individuals’ value judgements, one is essentially adding apples and oranges to create this statistical construct.

Secondly, since various goods play-varying importance in one’s existence, coefficients are needed to show the relative importance of various commodities which is of course are arbitrary since importance to each actor is subjective. The conventional method for this is to calculate how much one spends on a good to see its relative importance- so in low-income households the main expense would be mortgage, or rent, payments. However if the price of a good rose, such as butter, this would change the pattern of consumer spending since they would substitute it for other goods, such as margarine, changing the relative importance of each commodity based on their expenditure upon it. So any change in a good will change the individual’s expenditure pattern which is neglected by the computation of the price level.

Another problem with this weighting is that different people buy different things and thus have different “price levels” which the government statistics do not take account of; Murray Rothbard always complained that the prices of books kept increasing but it made no indentation on the price level. Astonishingly mortgage repayments are omitted from the CPI even though they constitute a large percentage of household expenditure. Further there are various statistical techniques to compute these averages: arithmetic mean, geometric mean, harmonic averages, median and such like. However there is no objective way of deciding which is a superior technique and thus any decision must again be arbitrary. Finally, as Mises points out, a “judicious housewife knows more about price changes as far as it affect her household than the statistical averages can” and she is no less scientific than the statisticians.

So how should we measure inflation? The older, and far more cogent, definition of inflation is the increase in the money supply. Suppose one had two goods in the economy A and B which both had prices of £5 each. Now if good A was to rise in price to £6 the price good B would have to fall to £4, assuming a constant money supply, which would yield an average price of £5. The only way prices in general can rise is if the money supply increases: suppose the money supply increased by £2 then the average price in the economy would rise by 20% to £6. Thus the prices rises are only a consequence of the increase of the money supply. It must though be stated at this point that prices in the real world do not increase, necessarily, at the same rate as the growth in the money supply since new money enters via a step process with different people receiving the new money at different times.

So instead of looking at the Price Level we should observe the M3 (a monetary aggregate) growth to see the true inflation rate and its wealth reducing consequences.
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Friday, 28 September 2007

Quote of the Day

I'm back posting now, hopefully regularly as previously. I had an extremely busy summe hence the lack of posting. Now for quote of the day:

"The police's job is only easy in a Police State"

Said by Mike Vargas, played by Charlton Heston, in Orson Welles' Touch of Evil. The film is pretty good although not one of Welles' best,
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Wednesday, 8 August 2007

Maidwell 2007 Part 1

On Sunday I returned back from a fantastic week or so at a Christian camp in Maidwell, near Northampton. Now when I say camp I don't mean we were under canvas but actually in dorms of a boys prep school; however we, the Bereans', slept in classrooms which included the Latin one. Now the Bereans are neither members or leaders, although legally we're the latter. Our motto is study and service. To get a feel of how this works here is a typical day:

0830- Quiet Time (which normally involved going through one of the seminars from the day before)
0855- Breakfast
0920- Business Meeting (sorting out the practical issues of the day)
0940- Corporate Prayer
1015- Bible Overview
1100- Break
1110- Bible Overview/ Seminar (depending on which day)
1145- Break
1210- Seminar (at which the senior members could attend)
1300- Lunch (then washing up for 140 people)
Free Time
1630- Afternoon Tea
1645- Bible Study
1745- Question Time (write any question on the board and get it answered)
1830- Tea Proper (then more washing up)
2030- Evening Meeting
2115- Evening Entertainment
2200- Free Time 2
2300- Sleep (well allegedly)

The Bible Overview sessions were conducted by Andrew Towner who recently graduated from Oak Hill Theological College with a Masters in Theology. We spent most of the time in the Old Testament since most people know little about the Old Testament and it has far more narrative in it than the New. The basis of the overview was People, Place and Blessing, which was nicked from Vaughn Roberts' God's Big Picture. Interestingly, we didn't start the overview immediately in Genesis but in Ephesians 1 where God declares his eternal plan of Christ being the vessel by whom we are saved, thenceforth to be his people, and to bless them through him. However we were taught Calvinistic predestination based on a faulty exegesis of the passage; however this didn't unduly affect the content of the overview. The reason for starting there is that how do we know where to start if we don't know where we're going. i.e If you ask a potter to make something he doesn't know where to start unless you tell him what you want making. This may sound a plausible argument especially since Ephesians 1 is chronologically before creation however I believe it carries many presuppositions which it brings to the text, not just Calvinism, and can yield interpretations filtered through one's own previously created system instead of allowing the Bible to naturally create the system. Further since Genesis was revealed first surely it follows that one should automatically start there and if there are greater insights from latterly revealed scripture then one should apply them latterly. (I will write on this at a future date) However I must repeat this did not unduly affect the overview.

We then skipped back to Genesis for the Creation and then the Fall: the second most momentous event in history. In this small part of the Bible a great theme is begun and the most eagerly awaited prophecy ever. The theme is that God blesses his people, they then turn away from God, he punishes them but then acts graciously: Creation is very good and Adam and Eve, not Steve, enjoy the blessing of God in the garden; they then sin by demonstrating that they believe God to be a liar by eating of the FRUIT, not apple, of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; God then punishes them by kicking them out of the Garden and cursing creation; but God provides skins to clothe Adam and Eve. This pattern is best outlined in the Exodus: God frees the Israelites from Egypt and carries them through approaching the promised land; now instead of trusting in God and taking Canaan they send spies in and get scared that the Canaanites are giants and do not attempt to take the promised land; God punishes them by condemning the Israelites to 40 years in the Wilderness however he provides manna for them in the desert.

We continued through the Law, Wisdom Literature and then the Prophets. One of the most interesting aspects of the Wisdom Lit. is that the Psalms are far more ordered than one might imagine: they are split into five distinct books put together by an editor. The first book focuses on David and God's commitment to him; the second on the Davidic line; the third on the failure of the Kings; fourthly on the nature of God- God is God; and finally on cries out to God for help followed by Psalms of huge praise to God.

We then studied Jesus' death and resurrection and how this fitted in- Towner also stressed the importance of Jesus' life since if it had not been perfect his death would have been in vain. Finally we looked at heaven and glory- the latter being living in the New Earth, not the one with cat nurses, in our resurrection bodies. This was particularly helpful in focusing our minds on what an unbelievable future we have and we should live for that and not now. Not surprisingly the millennial kingdom was conspicuous by her absence.

The other morning sessions were seminars on a variety of subjects including lust, doubt, suffering and ,in my opinion, most helpful those on image and pride. The former was done by Kate and it focused on how God sees us and how this changes our view of ourselves and consequently of other people. If one sees themselves as made in the image of God, and thus made to be in relationship with Him, this completely reorientates our outlook on life. Instead of defining ourselves by the world's riches, though these my be good in and of themselves, we see ourselves how God sees us. This then changes our view of other people since instead of primarily viewing them as ugly, beautiful, thick or intelligent we see that they're image bearers and are deserving of our love- this in particular should spur on our evangelism since if we now see them as they truly are we will see that their main need is that of Salvation.

Stuart did the seminar on pride which main point was to show how heinous pride actually is. I have come to the conclusion that pride is the essence of sin: it says I don't need God, I'll go my own way. This may seem obvious however pride can creep in unawares. The talk was a good boost in the arm for myself, and others, to critically evaluate our motives and actions to see whether we are doing things our own strength and thus feeding pride. Note well at this point false humility is worse than pride- it is being proud of the fact you are humble. What we need is to see what gifts God has given us, use them according and thank God for them. So if a position or role comes up which you believe God has given you the gifts to do it then do it. If you don't know what your gifts are try things out until you do. There is nothing worse than being given a fantastic present and refusing to use it.

The Bible studies were based on the overview. The first was on Ephesians 1. Subsequent ones included Exodus 20 (the 10 Commandments unfortunately not featuring Charlton Heston), Ruth and the "model" prophet Amos. These were helpful in going over parts of the overview in more detail.

Question Time was greatly useful and also entertaining; especially when we got discussing Baptism- Towner believes that non-professing belief baptism is legit whereas Stuart and myself believe solely in professing Believers baptism. Other topics discussed include the perennial predestination question (during which I bit my lip and put my head down), application of the Mosaic law today and capital punishment. On the latter the helpful distinction between 1st and 2nd party relations, and 3rd party relations was raised: in the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus states "turn the other cheek" his analogy is between two people- first and second party relations. Whereas all instances of execution of justice are meted out by third parties. This distinction is important since it retains an eye for an eye, retributive justice, for legal authorities to execute.

The evening meetings were a mini service with singing and a talk. The songs were actually pretty good and most were contemporary. Who says I only like old music?! The talks were on the basics of the Gospel and the Christian faith; all were clear, concise, and Biblical.

The service aspect and anecdotes will be dealt with in a subsequent post.

To see photos see here:

http://cardiffuk.facebook.com/photo_search.php?oid=2223143238&view=all
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