Small "L" Libertarian Thoughts On Parks And Government And What To Do While We Await Christian Law - Recorded July 2, 2025

AI Generated Transcript (I only fixed the mis-spelling of my name and used to ChatGPT to add all the sane paragraph breaks - I left the rest of the mess just the way AI delivered it haha):

Have you ever been to a beautiful park and very grateful for the people that had the foresight to mark off these lands for forest preserves and city parks, national parks, those sorts of things, while simultaneously believing that this stuff should not be done by government or by taxes?

That was a long intro. Welcome to Jon's Voice Notes, where I, Jon, take a topic that I'm thinking about today and say what I wanna say about it. Stream of consciousness with no plan. That's kinda the whole point.

I'm sitting here at a beautiful forest preserve in Northern Illinois. This one's called Afton. Absolutely beautiful. I'm in... Right now, I'm in a spot, my AC is running full blast, so you might hear it, 'cause it's getting hot out (laughs) and the car's in the sun.

But I'm looking out at a prairie with trees all around it and all sorts of plants and birds, and it looks like a worker out there cleaning up something. But I was just walking around. It is a beautiful... One of my favorite parks to walk around in.

Unfortunately, the bugs are really bad today. They were all over me, so that kinda ruined it. But I still appreciate the park. I have often when walking in a park like this thought about how glad I am that some people a long time ago, I don't know how long ago.

I think I visited here with a gra- graduate student at NIU many years ago who was part of the project of creating this place. That would've been early '90s maybe. I don't know what was already here, but this particular one.

There's been other ones around the area forever and parks and you, you've been to them. But I wanna kind of explore an interesting concept that my, my thinking, you know, politically speaking, I tend to be pretty close to almost libertarian as far, as far as how I think the world should, should go.

At least lib- uh, small L. I'm not a part of a libertarian party, not into Ayn Rand or some of the things that many people that call themselves libertarians are into. It's more like the government I would create if God said, "Create the government the way you want," would be way smaller and way less interfering with our lives than what we have now.

And things like parks would be there, but they'd be managed in a different way, not by tax money. But I've kinda... As I've gotten older, I've been trying to sort through, you know, what do I do?

Because the way that I believe God's law and biblical principle would govern us is way more freedom than we have. We, uh, we always say, w- those of us in America, the land of the free, but you're not nearly as free as you think you are.

You're required to either pay outrageous taxes or to submit your whole income and all your deductions and everything to the federal government to make them a little bit less. You can try not filing. I've heard people say it's voluntary to file.

But it isn't truly voluntary, as in they, they could come after you, but it's voluntary in the sense that for the most part, it's self-enforced. Most people just do it out of fear or whatever.

You can't start a business the way you want and where you want. You can't build a house the way you want and where you want. There's zoning laws and all kinds of restrictions. Sometimes they may be even beneficial.

But I've often thought, how do I live in this world? How do I engage in political issues, for example, when my actual view is completely outside of anything that's going on? (laughs) It just does not fit.

I know people who think similar to me who feel like not voting at all is the way to go, 'cause there is no legitimate candidate running. I'm really gonna be curious to see if this really strong AC is leaving a fan sound on this recording.

But they re- they, you know, don't vote at all. I had people encourage me in the last election, "Oh, all these candidates are corrupt and evil. Don't vote for any of them."

But here's the philosophy I've developed, and I think I've talked about this before, but, you know, this is what I wanna say today, so too bad. And also, there's a lot of these now, so I'm probably repeating myself, 'cause sometimes I'm thinking about similar things.

But w- here's kind of how I've figured out how to live in this world. One, whether I like it or not, I'm living with my fellow human beings, and my fellow human beings want some form of what we have.

Even the ones that are more, you know, conservative or liberty oriented, they want more government than I want. There's things that they want the government to do, and I have to decide how am I going to interact with that, 'cause I could just say what I really believe, but then I'm kind of cut out from being relevant at all, 'cause it's way off.

In fact, I've often had people say, "That's never going to happen." I don't agree th- uh, with them. I do see it as not anything that's within near reach.

But here, let's get back to use this park as an example. There should be parks like this. There should be places set aside, so that like Psalm 23 said, God can lead us, you know, into green pastures besi- beside the still waters and all that.

We need that as humans. We shouldn't fill every place up with houses and parking lots. We should have places like this. However-The, there's, we don't really have a right to tax everyone in order to create it.

We don't have a right to say, "We, some of us want this, so everybody must pay a tax on their house." It's usually property taxes that fund things like this, I think. But fact check me. Tell me if I'm wrong. That's what I think. I haven't fact checked it. That's what I believe, though, is the case.

So, how should it work, then? Well, there should be private entities that build things like this, and that are funded by people that want to fund it. They can fund it by charging a fee. They can fund it by being a for-profit.

Um, I'm a believer that we need lots of places like this that anybody can go to without paying a fee, but where there's a, a lot of people who believe in it enough to voluntarily fund it. So, that would be a non-profit model. But we, you can have for-profit models.

Um, there's an arboretum in the suburbs near where I live that you have to pay to get in, and it's a beautiful place with flowers and trees, and it's just a, it's just a spectacularly beautiful place.

And then there's places like where I'm at that you don't have to pay anything to come in, but it is funded by property taxes.

So, I guess what I'm getting at is this. I recognize that some of the things that I don't believe the government should be doing are things that should be done. And right now, my fellow human beings are pretty committed to doing it this way.

So, if I'm teaching a class on God's principles of government, I'm gonna share. Yeah, you don't have a, we don't have a right to tax people for whatever we feel like we should do in society.

I would argue that we can only really tax people in a way that's consistent with Biblical principles, and there are, there is stuff in there about taxes and what they're for. And our tax system is very oppressive. It's way too high.

The number of... You're paying property taxes. Even if you're a renter, you're ultimately paying the property taxes, right? You're paying sales taxes. You're paying income taxes. You're paying Medicaid and Medicare and Social Security. You're just paying so many taxes.

Uh, and you shouldn't be. It isn't right. You know, this whole, like, there should be a cultural system for dealing with the elderly, right? For example, like Social Security.

But there should not be a national government tax everybody funded system to redistribute that wealth to the elderly. The first line of provision for the elderly should be, um, children, honor your parents, from Ephesians, or from the Old Testament. Honor your father and your mother.

This includes taking care of them in their old age. Now obviously, there's going to be cases where something's going to have gone wrong, that children have all died, or you know, before their parents, or they didn't have children 'cause they couldn't, or whatever.

There, we need in our society mercy ministries that will make sure that we honor our general fathers and mothers. Our first priority is to honor our own biological, or if we were adopted, our adopted, um, mothers and fathers, right?

But we should also be looking at a bro- a broader, how do we assist those that something has gone wrong with the way they should've been provided for? I'm just giving you an idea.

However, I do recognize that even though I think it's being done in the wrong way, we need to have a plan for, um, providing for people in their old age when they don't, they're not able to do the kind of work anymore that they did when they were younger and created an income, wh- where, where they are respected and honored and provided for, that this value is important.

So, I, I think of the same thing with police. I, I'm not sure that the way we do police is really a legitimate way to do it. We have these people that are, you know, hovering around making sure we're all behaving. I don't see that as a, you know, a valid government role to be police really at all.

So, I know I probably sound like the defund the police type. However, I'm gonna balance that out by saying I recognize the need for a people devoted to security.

You know, if there's, you know, rampant crime or people coming from the outside that are trouble, um, we need, we do need security. We do need agents of the court for when people are charged with legitimate crimes and they're trying to get away that will capture and arrest and imprison these people if necessary for their trial.

So, that's a form of police, but it's not a general police that are roaming around, you know, checking on us. But the security people might be roaming around, but they're not there to police us. They're there to deal with, only with problems, right?

So, you're going, "Well, that is the police." I'm going, "Yeah, but the police are a government tax-funded agency."

So, while I believe like, you know, agents of the court or whatever you wanna call them, are a legitimate function of tax-funded government, I'm not convinced that what we call the police are. Gotta be another way to do that, another way to fund that.

Uh, famously, I don't know if they still do this, they used to have private police in San Francisco. I remember a movie, I can't remember what it was called about that. Like I see the man and the woman who were the stars of it, but I can't remember their names, um, or the name of the movie.

But you know, there, there's other ways to do it. So, but what I'm really getting at, for those of you who are like me, probably a lot of you are going like, "Whatever are you talking about? I don't care about this."

But those of you who are more libertarian but you're also trying to be relevant, that's kinda how I see it, is that, is, that there's things that are, there's an idle. The government has been idolized. We believe the government can do anything.

The civil, state government, the national government, the state governments, the county governments. We believe they're kinda all powerful, like God. We think they're God.

You know, so if there's a problem, it's like, "Well, what are we gonna do about it?" by which they mean, "How are we gonna tax people and coerce people to do this?" Y- Nobody consciously thinks those words, but whenever you say, "We need to vote this reform in or do this," and it, and it costs money, you're saying, "We need to coerce people to pay for this," (laughs) and, "We need to coerce people to submit to this."

So I maintain my libertarian-ish values; I'm not committed to the word or anybody's label or what that means to anyone. I just mean...

The real purpose of government is to have a minimal restraint on crime, like violent crime and theft, not crimes made up by a legislature, actual biblical-type crimes.

Um, it's valid to have s- a defense system like a militia. I don't mean like a private, crazy, you know, off-in-the-mountains militia. I mean like a community militia, that can form into state militias and be, when necessary, a national army when th- we actually legitimately need one.

There's, there's... These things are all... There's biblical examples of these. But there's a lot of things that, you know... Shouldn't be property taxes at all. We shouldn't be taxing for parks and libraries and s- not even schools.

These are, nobody should... There should be zero laws that coerce anyone to attend any school anywhere. And there should be zero laws that make anyone pay for it.

Um, if you want to have a public school that's general access, you have to find a way to fund it. You can either... You can fund it however you want if you start it. You can make it publicly available, but there should not be government schools.

So, I know, crazy radical Libertarian Jon here, I do recognize that that's what my fellow human beings want. I don't think they can even fathom what I'm saying.

Like, if I u- if anyone ever hears my view on taxes, they'll say, "Well, what about roads?" You know, and we're usually talking about income taxes and property taxes.

And I'm like, okay, there has not always been income taxes and property taxes. Were there no roads before that? Right. So... (laughs) Yeah. Okay.

Wow, I went off in a direction I wasn't planning. But what really, the, the core of what I'm thinking about is how I have this kind of libertarian core, but I operate and think also kind of like a conservative-ish guy.

I want to conserve and preserve what we do have that's good in this country. I'd love to progress towards Libertarian, which is the opposite of what's usually called progressivism. (laughs) Progressivism usually means progressing towards a larger state, doing more to make the world how the progressives think it should be. That's what progressivism usually means.

So... Yeah, that's my thought. But I, I guess, I, I've come to this balance where I'm, on the one hand, sticking with my as biblical and Libertarian and... Well, bi- biblical Libertarian as I can be, while recognizing that it's, I think it's okay for me to vote and act and speak out also according to what is.

Maybe it's best to say both. "Well, here's what I really believe, but I recognize that this is... And within this context, we should do A, B, and C."

So I voted in the last election, presidential election. I voted in midterm elections. I'm always voting for people that aren't even close to my values as far as my, what I actually, how I believe government should work.

But they may be close to my values in the sense that let's preserve and conserve the good things about America and try and keep that going.

Because I believe that keeping going this, what we have, uh, leaves a space of freedom for us, those of us who have underst- an understanding of pursuing biblical law can be free to c- pursue that, and, uh, sow seeds and eventually one day God can bring that about. It's probably a long ways away.

Does that make sense how I can be like a Libertarian and a conservative at the same time, recognizing that I'm moving away from my core, but I'm trying to pull things in the right direction?

I'm not sure if that makes me an incrementalist or what, or what. I don't know what label to put on myself, but this is how I'm practically operating, is I'm, I'm looking at the candidates and going, "Well, okay, this candidate is going to destroy society."

This candidate is either not going to c- destroy society or not as bad or not as fast. And I usually end up voting for the one that's a little bit more conservative.

And there, there have been times where the candidates are so bad on all sides that I literally don't vote for any of them. You know, Libertarian that's pro-abortion or Republican that's pro-abortion. A Democrat that is off the charts, um, quacked like they usually are.

You know, then there's a Green Party or whatever, which isn't an option. And there is usually not like a Constitution Party or any of those on there at all as an option.

Most of the time, if I can... Basically, if I can, I'll vote for the conservative-ish, Republican-ish candidate, if my conscience will let me.

But there have been times where even with them, they're, they're pro-abortion or they're just so, so leftist, even though they call themselves a conservative.

Uh, it's been sometimes, both as president and local elections, where I just, I don't vote for that person, that race at all. I pick the other ones. Or I write something in or whatever.

So I'm not telling you how to vote; I'm telling you how I am trying to... I'm inspired by this beautiful park that I'm at to think all this.

This is me. I walk around in a beautiful place and my mind goes off into how should the world be? How should I be trying to make the world and create what God wants here?

Um, and I have fi- At this point in my life, I've kind of balancing between the conservative-ishness, conservative-ishness and Libertarian-ishness.

But ultimately, what I am is a Christian law believer, meaning the biblical law, the wh- all of it, Genesis to Revelation, discovering and studying the parts that apply to civil government, which isn't everything, and, um, applying those and trying to build a civil government like that or s- or as close as we can get.

Obviously making it relevant to the world we live in now. Um, but I don't mean by that violate all the principles. I mean, you know, there's a lot lower percentage of people in agriculture, for example, rather than almost everyone being in agriculture.

Um, there you go. Thank you for listening to my crazy ramble about why there should be... Here's the summary. There should be beautiful parks like this, but nobody should be forced to pay for it.

There you go. All right. God bless you. Thank you for listening to Jon's Voice Notes today. This is Jon and Jon's Voice Notes signing off.