The Extent of Biblical Inspiration

https://www.preservedwords.com/extent.html

Is it Possible to Carry Inspiration Too Far

Timothy S. Morton

As should be expected, in these latter days the Scriptural view of Biblical inspiration has been under attack. The position of many who claim to be Christians, including entire denominations, is inspiration does not extend to the actual words of the Scriptures but only to concepts or ideas that may be found in the Scriptures. Some do not believe in any form of inspiration beyond the natural inspiration of some men in general, and others only believe in a universal, Christian inspiration that is shared by all believers.

On the other hand there are certain believers who essentially claim Biblical inspiration extends beyond the words of Scripture, even as far as the spelling, punctuation, capitalization, italics, and general text layout. How far does inspiration extend according to the Scriptures? It is obvious one can minimize the true nature of inspiration, but can one extend inspiration too far?

Inspired or Expired?

The two salient passages that deal with Biblical inspiration are 2 Tim 3:16 and 2 Peter 1:21. 2 Tim plainly states all scripture is given by inspiration of God. Thus if a text is Scripture, it was/is then given to man by inspiration. This begs the question; what is inspiration? The classic definition is it means God-breathed, that is God breathed something into man.

Often one will read where inspiration is defined as God breathing out His words, but the passage does not state this explicitly. Look at the word INspiration. It speaks of something going IN; not something coming OUT. The something coming out is only implied. Thus the emphasis is what is going IN to those blessed with the inspiration. William Evans stated this clearly in his excellent book, Great Doctrines of the Bible,

Inspiration, then, as defined by Paul in this passage, is the strong, conscious inbreathing of God into men, qualifying them to give utterance to truth. It is God speaking through men, and the Old Testament is therefore just as much the Word of God as though God spake every single word of it with His own lips. The Scriptures are the result of divine inbreathing, just as human speech is uttered by the breathing through a man's mouth.

Now the question arises, what is it that was given by inspiration? What was breathed in? 2 Peter 1:21 gives some more details.

For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

Ah, the Holy Ghost moved mean to SPEAK, and what do men speak? Words, man speaks with words. When the Lord wanted to proclaim a prophecy to mankind he would by His Holy Spirit move upon a man in such a way as to cause the man to speak His words. When these words were written down they became Scripture.

Since the Lord gave the prophets the words to speak or write, this requires the inspiration to be verbal. Verbal inspiration means the actual words were given, not just concepts or ideas. The Bible says a great deal about words. A search of verses that contain words and Lord will return scores of revealing verses. For instance,

And Moses told Aaron all the WORDS of the LORD who had sent him, and all the signs which he had commanded him. (Exo 4:28)

And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these WORDS which the LORD commanded him. (Exo 19:7)

And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the WORDS of this law and these statutes, to do them: (Deu 17:19)

And thou shalt write upon them all the WORDS of this law, when thou art passed over, that thou mayest go in unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, a land that floweth with milk and honey; as the LORD God of thy fathers hath promised thee.  (Deu 27:3)

If thou wilt not observe to do all the WORDS of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD; (Deu 28:58)    

And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, Come hither, and hear the WORDS of the LORD your God. (Jos 3:9)

And Joshua wrote these WORDS in the book of the law of God, and took a great stone, and set it up there under an oak, that was by the sanctuary of the LORD. (Jos 24:26)

All is clear to a Bible believer: the Lord gave His very words to certain men to speak and write. To quote Evans again,

The statements of the Scriptures regarding Inspiration may be summed up as follows: Holy men of God, qualified by the infusion of the breath of God, wrote in obedience to the divine command, and were kept from all error, whether they revealed truths previously unknown or recorded truths already familiar. In this sense, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, the Bible is indeed and in truth the very Word of God, and the books of the Bible are of divine origin and authority.

Inspiration and the Authorized Version

By the very definition of Fundamentalism, all Fundamentalists must agree with the above. One of the main tenets of Fundamentalism is the verbal, plenary inspiration of the Scriptures. However, as Bible believers all too well know, most who identify with Fundamentalism insist this inspiration extends only to the original autographs. We will not spend time examining this here since we have already covered it in detail in other material.

Claiming only the original autographs WERE inspired is essentially believing in something that doesn't exist. As anyone who has even slightly examined this issue realizes, not one of the original autographs still exists. Therefore, according to the Autograph Only crowd there is no infallible, inspired Bible on the face of the earth. All that is left is reliable texts and reliable translations.

The Bible believer doesn't believe in such a useless and impotent inspiration. He believes the same God who gave His words by inspiration will also preserve them unto all generations. They further believe these preserved words are found in all their inerrancy and purity in the Authorized King James Bible of 1611. For an outline of the thought process leading to the conclusion that the AV is the pure word of God preserved in English, see From the Original Texts to the English Bible.

Sometimes critics of the Bible believing philosophy will bring up something called double-inspiration in an attempt to confound a Bible believer. They try to trap the believer into making inconsistent and contradictory statements by insisting the he believes the KJB is/was inspired in itself when it was translated (1603-1611). But the truth is the words of God did not loose their inspiration along the way to need to be re-inspired!

Since the Autograph Only believe only the original autographs were inspired, they believe it is logical only the original languages can convey the inspiration. Nonsense. No where in the Scriptures does it say God's words loose their power, inerrancy, or inspiration when they are translated. We showed multiple instances of how the words retain all their virtues in Which Translation Should You Trust? So since the words did not loose their inspiration when translated, they do not need to be re-inspired as the critics try to claim.

Some Bible believers, however, fuel such attacks with certain statements they make. In an attempt to uphold and exalt the word of God your author has heard believers claim the spelling, punctuation, capitalization, text layout, word format and even type-face are also inspired. These brethren are well meaning in their attempt to uphold the AV, but frankly, their zeal is not according to knowledge or Scripture.

As we outlined above, the Scriptures were given by inspiration by the moving of the Holy Spirit upon certain men. This inspiration was verbal and thus extended to the very words, and these words have been and are continuously preserved by the Lord for all generations, but what is a word?

Words, Words, and More Words

Words are sounds that are spoken to express a specific idea or tangible thing.  Webster's 1828 defines word as,

WORD, n. [G., L., to speak. A word is that which is uttered or thrown out.]

1. An articulate or vocal sound, or a combination of articulate and vocal sounds, uttered by the human voice, and by custom expressing an idea or ideas; a single component part of human speech or language. 

Thus since words are spoken, we learn a key lesson in understanding what was given by inspiration: the sound that represents a word. It is the sound of a word that defines it, not the spelling, etc. Meaning is linked to the sound of the word; not to its appearance.

For instance the words, life, death, water, light, pain, etc. all refer to specific thoughts, concepts or things. There is no ambiguity. However, what if pain was spelled paine, payne, or pane. Would it be any less painful? To paraphrase Shakespeare, would pain by any other spelling sting any less? Obviously spelling does not change the meaning of the word. It is just a variation in the appearance of the written word.

The same can be said for punctuation. Punctuation is merely an aid to understanding the written word. Most punctuation as we know it today was unknown in Bible times. Sometimes Bible texts were even written without spaces between the words. This could lead to some confusion. TRUTHISNOWHERE could say Truth is now here or Truth is no where. Concerning punctuation, You are smart can have a different thought than You, are smart?  thus word spacing or punctuation can affect meaning. Punctuation does not change the meaning of the individual words, but it can change the meaning of a group of words or sentence. It is the context that determines the proper meaning and punctuation.

Some Bible believers have not considered these facts when making statements concerning the preservation of the Scriptures. Your author has heard some say things like, If you change one letter in the King James Version you have corrupted God's word. Or If you move or change one comma, you are a Bible corrector. Though well meaning, statements like this are actually counterproductive. The proof is the King James Bible itself.

Although it has been available for nearly 400 years, some of the brethren are apparently unaware that the edition of the AV we use today is not the original edition of 1611. The current edition was first printed in 1769 with (as the critics of the AV love to point out) thousands of visible changes from the 1611 edition. However, the vast majority of these changes are only changes in spelling and punctuation. The 1611 edition spells fear as feare; love as loue; and sin as sinne. Is any meaning changed, though? Of course not. Sin is still sin whether it is spelled sin, sinne, or syn.

Sometimes the 1611 edition even uses a symbol instead of a word. For instance in Gen. 2:4 a & is used in place of and, but and is found later in the verse. This really throws a monkey-wrench into the works for those who insist the appearance of a word is inspired. & is not even a word! And which is the "inspired" appearance, & or and? This is little different than exchanging the written out numbers to digits as done in the AV Numerical.

Also, as a result of the spelling changes, the 1769 edition usually has several fewer letters per verse and many fewer letters over all. This also affects words. The 1611 will sometimes have two words where the 1769 only has one, and vice versa (in stead for instead; Gen 2:21). Thus the total word count between the editions is different as well. Another difference is in the italics. The 1611 has considerably fewer italics than the 1769. In view of this all one needs to challenge the statements some brethren make concerning the word count, spelling, punctuation, italics, etc. of the current 1769 KJB is the original 1611 KJB.

Statistics of Authorized Version

	1611	1769
Sentences	30368	29887
Words	791578	790685
Letters	3291057	3226651
Italics	13208	21605

Checked with Bible Analyzer

Different But The Same

In view of all that is different between the editions of the KJB, let's consider what is the same -- the WORDS! Even with all the spelling, punctuation, etc., differences, the words are the same and thus the meaning is the same making them the SAME Bible. The surest proof for showing they are the same text and same Bible is there is no difference in the hearing in this words. If someone read aloud from a 1611 edition and another from the 1769, there would be no difference in the hearing! The words are the same. Remember where Peter said holy men of God SPAKE? It is in the speaking and hearing where words and their meaning are found. Try this with the so-called NKJV (or any other version). You won't go two verses before you hear different words. 

It is this knowledge of the verbal agreement between the 1611 and 1769 editions that allows Bible believers to refer to them interchangeably. We often say we believe the true Bible to be the Authorized King James version of 1611 when some may have never seen the 1611 and use the 1769 edition. This is acceptable because they are simply two editions of the same text, consisting of the same words (apart from the very few misprints in the 1611 printing).

Can the Spelling be Changed Again?

In relation to this, the argument can be made that if the spelling of the AV has been updated without harm to the text, it could be done again. To be consistent such a conclusion must be true, but that does not mean it is necessary or even beneficial. If the Lord desired He could cause an edition of the AV to be distributed that uses modern spelling for the relatively few words in the 1769 that use older spelling. But ,again, this does not mean that such has to be done or even should be done. Only that it could be done without harm to the text.

Occasionally, your author has had brethren insist the spelling cannot be changed without corrupting the text. One brother claimed the spelling of Saviour in the 1769 is the only proper spelling of the term implying it was in some way sanctified. He alleged the modern spelling of Savior was a perversion. We asked him if Saviour is the only acceptable spelling, what is he going to do with Sauiour as found in the 1611 edition? He did not reply.

Bible believers need to be consistent. God is not the God of confusion or irrational reasoning. The lesson is the Lord is showing us with the two editions of the AV is spelling, punctuation, italics, typeface,  divided compound words and even symbols are not actually the Scriptures. The WORDS are the Scriptures.

Let's go a little further. Your author has heard some of the brethren say, The 1769 King James has been God's choice for 250 years and woe be anyone that dares change it in the least. They claim to resist any deviation from the 1769 while at the same time many of them use a modern printing of the Bible that uses a self-pronouncing text which contains thousands of visible changes.

The self-pronouncing text in many Bibles today was not incorporated in the 1769 edition. It was developed in the 1800's by Oxford Press as an aid to pronouncing some of the more difficult Bible words. Many thousands of the plain 1769 words were modified to include dashes, hyphens, and other pronunciation marks. For example, Enoch is rendered E`noch. In spite of their numerous additions, these changes amount to little more than a spelling change. And as with any spelling change there is no difference in the hearing, and if there is no difference in the hearing, there is no difference in the words.

The Conclusion of the Matter

In summary, the 1611 edition of the AV along with the 1769 edition (and all editions in between), plus the self-pronouncing version of the 1769, any red-letter edition (and even our own AV Numerical which changes the written out numbers to digits) are all the pure King James Bible because there is no difference in the hearing of the words. They are the same text. Those who differ will have a hard time proving their claims from the Scriptures. The promises God has made deal with words, not spelling, punctuation, layout, and other non verbal matters. No where in the Bible does it say God's words must be spelled a certain way or even laid out in verses. If that were true then the Autograph Only would be correct in insisting only the original autographs can convey the full extent of God's word.

In summary the 1611 edition of the AV along with the 1769 edition (and all editions in between), plus the self-pronouncing version of the 1769, and any red-letter printing are all the pure King James Bible because there is no difference in the hearing of the words. They are the same text. Those who differ will have a hard time proving their claims from the Scriptures. The promises God has made deal with words, not spelling, punctuation, layout, and other ancillary matters. No where in the Bible does it say God's words must be spelled a certain way or even laid out in verses. If that were true then the Autograph Only would be correct in insisting only the original autographs can convey the full extent of God's word. 

For God So Loved the World: A Biblical Defense of Christianity against Calvinism

 https://biblevscalvinism.org/home

John 6:35 and Total Depravity

https://faithalone.org/grace-in-focus-articles/john-635-and-total-depravity/

 

By Laurence M. Vance

And Jesus said unto them, “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).

Calvinism

Calvinism is the teaching that man is so dead in sin that God has to irresistibly call him and regenerate him against his will before he can exercise faith in Christ. But all men are not eligible, just the elect whom Christ died for. That is the five points of Calvinism in a nutshell. The five points are total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints (TULIP) .

Total depravity is the teaching that the unregenerate man is totally dead in sin to the extent that he has the inability to freely accept Jesus Christ. Unconditional election is the teaching that God, by a sovereign, eternal decree, unconditionally elected a certain number of men to salvation. Limited atonement is the teaching that Jesus Christ, by His death on the cross, only made an atonement for the group of men previously elected to salvation. Irresistible grace is the teaching that God irresistibly overpowers the will of the elect sinner with His grace and regenerates him, granting him faith and repentance to believe on Jesus Christ. Perseverance of the saints is the teaching that all of the elect who have been regenerated by God will persevere in the faith and ultimately die in a state of grace.

Calvinists call their system the “doctrines of grace,” implying that if you don’t believe the system, then you are denying salvation by grace.

Total Depravity

I want to focus on Total Depravity.

I actually agree with Calvinists about the depravity of man. This is certainly a Biblical doctrine. Man is “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph 2:1). “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jer 17:9). David said: “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps 51:5). Because God is holy, man is an “enemy of God” (Rom 5:10), “at enmity with God” (Eph 2:15), and “alienated from God” (Eph 4:18). Man’s first birth is no good. That’s why he must be born again.

But the Calvinist view of total depravity is not about depravity; it is about inability. In fact, some Calvinists call their first point total inability. Total depravity is the result of man’s depravity. Total depravity is one of the three essential points of Calvinism. It is also the foundation of Calvinism. It necessitates the doctrines of unconditional election (UE) and irresistible grace (IG). If men have the inability to come to Christ and believe on him, then it logically follows that if any of them are to be saved, then God must first determine who they are (UE) and then irresistibly overcome their inability (IG) so that they can come to Christ and believe on Him. Calvinists think that for God to get the glory for salvation, man must be unable to accept or reject it. God has to elect people to salvation because they can’t respond and then has to regenerate them against their will so they can respond. In Calvinism, regeneration precedes faith; the offer of salvation is only intended for the elect; and no one has the ability to accept Christ of his own free will.

John 6:35 contradicts Calvinism on total depravity.

John 6:35

And Jesus said unto them, “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).

Jesus had just taken some loaves and fishes and fed over 5,000 men (plus women and children). Many came to Him the next day, not because of the miracle He performed, but because they “did eat of the loaves, and were filled” (John 6:26). When Jesus encouraged them to believe on Him whom God had sent, they asked for a sign that they might believe Him. Then, even after they
had eaten of the bread that Jesus miraculously provided, they had the audacity to mention how God had fed their fathers in the wilderness with manna, and even quoted from the Psalms to
reinforce it. Jesus then shifted the argument from physical bread to spiritual bread. But like the woman at the well (John 4:15), the people were still thinking in purely physical terms. Jesus then
made it perfectly clear that He is the bread of life.

There are three things that we see in John 6:35 that are found throughout the NT: faith precedes regeneration; the offer of salvation is indiscriminate; and salvation is a personal decision.

Faith Precedes Regeneration

Calvinists put the theological cart before the Biblical horse. In Calvinism, believing on Christ is the result of salvation, not the cause of salvation. Here is R.C. Sproul: “The Reformed view of predestination teaches that before a person can choose Christ his heart must be changed. He must be born again” (Chosen By God, p. 72). Sproul again: The maxim “regeneration precedes faith” is “a cardinal point of Reformed theology” (ibid.). And here is Loraine Boettner: “A man is not saved because he believes in Christ; he believes in Christ because he is saved” (Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, p. 101).

John 6:35, “And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.” “Cometh to me shall never hunger” and “believeth on me shall never thirst” show us that faith precedes regeneration.

The coming to Christ and the believing on Him precede the never hungering and the never thirsting. You must partake of the bread of life to get everlasting life. Calvinism turns things around and says that you must get everlasting life so you can partake of the bread of life. But if someone is already regenerated, then why does he have to come to Christ? If someone is already saved, then why does he have to believe on Jesus? Can a man be regenerated without coming to Christ? Can a man be saved without believing? Can a regenerated man go to hell? Can a non-believer go to heaven?

In the Bible, God saves those who believe and condemns those who don’t believe, not those who have the misfortune of not being part of the “elect”:

“He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36).

John 6:35 contradicts Calvinism on total depravity.

An Indiscriminate Offer

Calvinists maintain that the gospel message is only for the elect. The reprobate have the inability to respond. They may outwardly hear the gospel call, but it is not for them. According to John Gerstner, both the “internal spiritual call” and the “external audible call” are to the regenerate. “This one call to the regenerate is heard by the ears of many unregenerate. But what they hear is not a call to them but to the regenerate” (Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth, p. 120).

John 6:35,

“And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.”

“Jesus said unto them” shows us that the offer of salvation is indiscriminate.

Who is the “them” that Jesus is speaking to? It is certainly not the elect. He was speaking to “a great multitude” (v 2) and “a great company” (v 5). Compare vv 7, 9, 10-12, 14-15, 22, 24-30, 32, and 34. Most of the multitude Jesus was offering salvation to never received Him (cf. John 1:1). And it’s not only “they” who can believe, for we are told in v 33 that the bread of God “giveth life unto the world.” As John said earlier: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). God’s offer is indiscriminate: “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth” (Isa 45:22). And God’s offer is genuine: “I said not, seek ye me in vain, I the Lord speak righteousness, I declare things that are right” (Isa 45:19).

John 6:35 contradicts Calvinism on total depravity.

A Personal Response

According to Calvinism, since men are dead in sin, they can only do according to their depraved nature; they do not have the free will to come to Christ and believe on Him. Calvinists equate man’s ability to receive Christ with the ability to regenerate oneself.

John 6:35,

And Jesus said unto them, “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.”

“He that” shows us that salvation is a personal decision.

This is the universal testimony of Scripture:

“If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink” (John 7:37).

“Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God” (1 John 5:1).

“Whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

“And whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely” (Rev 22:17).

These verses, and other verses like them, including John 6:35, have no meaning if no one can will to accept Christ.

The Bible does not say: if any man whom God wills thirsts, let him come unto me and drink. The Bible does not say: whomsoever God wills to believe that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. The Bible does not say: whomsoever God wills to believe in Him should not perish. The Bible doesn’t say: whomsoever God wills, let him take of the water of life freely.

The Bible is clear that believing or not believing on Christ is a conscious choice. The response to Paul’s preaching was that “some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not” (Acts 28:24). The preaching of the cross is both “foolishness to them that perish and “the power of God” to the saved (1 Cor 1:18). The reason men do not come to Christ and believe on Him to everlasting life is not because of their inability, but because of their unwillingness. As Jesus said: “Ye will not come unto me, that ye might have life” (John 5:40).

John 6:35 contradicts Calvinism on total depravity.

Conclusion

If total depravity is true, then there is absolutely nothing a man can do but hope he is one of the elect and that God will save him. But if total depravity is not true, then men can be saved without the other points of Calvinism, and the whole foundation of Calvinism collapses.

____________________

Laurence M. Vance is the author of The Other Side of Calvinism and many other books.

Job - Bible Book 18 - Holy Bible Audio Text

 

The False Teachings and Frauds That Convinced the World of a Terrible Lie ...EVOLUTION

 

A Principled View of States’ Rights

https://mises.org/mises-wire/principled-view-states-rights

PS; I disagree with the authors view that minor genital mutilation is ever OK to be legal AKA so called sex transition surgery at a State rights level nor that a free society can legalize abortion even at a State level.

Empire building is one way to show the world you’re a failing empire.

https://mises.org/notes-margin/empire-building-one-way-show-world-youre-failing-empire

Why Good Intentions Are Not Enough

https://mises.org/power-market/why-good-intentions-are-not-enough

Germany’s Latest War on Freedom

https://mises.org/power-market/germanys-latest-war-freedom

State Primary Socialization Indoctrination: A Libertarian Critique of Youth Digital Regulation

https://mises.org/power-market/state-primary-socialization-indoctrination-libertarian-critique-youth-digital-regulation

 

Conservatives Are Incorrigible Drug Warriors

https://mises.org/power-market/conservatives-are-incorrigible-drug-warriors

 01/20/2026

•Power & Market•Laurence M. Vance

Forget everything that conservatives say about individual liberty, personal freedom, property rights, the Constitution, federalism, capitalism, limited government, the free market, and free enterprise. They don’t mean a word of it because they are such incorrigible drug warriors.

The reaction of conservatives to President Trump’s “lethal, kinetic strikes” by the U.S. military against “narco-terrorists” in boats in international waters who were supposedly transporting drugs to the United States is appalling.

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo) remarked that “President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have every right to destroy every narco-terrorist trying to smuggle drugs into the U.S. that they can find.”

Deroy Murdock, a Fox News contributor and a contributing editor with The American Spectator, commented: “All week long, I have tried to cry for the narco-terrorists who survived a U.S. military strike on their drug-laden boat, only to be snuffed in a second attack. Somehow, my eyes have stayed totally dry.”

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth proudly proclaimed, “We have only just begun to kill narco-terrorists.”

The words of conservative media darling Megyn Kelly are especially troubling:

So I really do kind of not only want to see them killed in the water, whether they’re on the boat or in the water, but I’d really like to see them suffer. I would like Trump and Hegseth to make it last a long time so that they lose a limb and bleed out a little. Like I’m really having a difficult time ginning up sympathy for these guys who ten seconds earlier almost got taken out by the initial bomb, but because they managed to get ejected, you know, a little too soon, had to be taken out in the water.

Most conservatives fully support everything that Trump has done relating to Venezuela because it is being done under the guise of fighting the drug war. And they will fully support whatever military actions he takes in Colombia and Mexico for the same reason.

But even before Trump starting bombing boats in the ocean that he thought were transporting drugs to the United States, some conservatives were calling for drug dealers to be put to death.

In 1996, Newt Gingrich, then a Republican member of Congress, introduced the Drug Importer Death Penalty Act of 1996 (H.R.4170) “to provide a sentence of death for certain importations of significant quantities of controlled substances.” Thankfully, the bill died in committee. When he appeared in 2009 on “The O’Reilly Factor,” Gingrich remarked that Americans needed to get the stomach for executing drug dealers.

President Trump himself, in his first term, advocated getting tough on drug dealers, “and that toughness includes the death penalty,” he said. When he was running for president the second time, Trump told New Hampshire voters during a CNN town hall that “we’re going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught selling drugs, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts.”

Conservatives are such incorrigible drug warriors that many of them in and out of Congress even balked at President Trump’s executive order to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule III drug under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), thereby classifying marijuana in the same category as Tylenol with codeine instead of with fentanyl.

Paul Larkin of the Heritage Foundation said that the president’s rescheduling decision “would be a mistake on multiple levels.” He believes that marijuana is unsafe, more powerful than it was back in the 60s and 70s, unhealthy, harmful, and not effective for medical use. Twenty-six House Republicans even sent Trump a letter deploring his rescheduling decision. Signers included Rep. Andy Harris, chairman of the misnamed House Freedom Caucus. Twenty-two Senate Republicans did likewise.

Why do conservatives care so much about those Americans who choose to use drugs?

Every bad thing conservatives say about illegal drugs (addictive, dangerous, unhealthy, deadly) can be said about alcohol and tobacco. Do conservatives think that the government should ban them? Why not? Why is it that if a man comes home from work on a Friday night and smokes a pack of cigarettes and drinks a 12-pack of beer or a fifth of whiskey and passes out drunk and does not wake up until noon on Saturday that the government doesn’t care and conservatives don’t care? But if a man comes home from work on a Friday night and smokes some marijuana or snorts some cocaine and passes out stoned and does not wake up until noon on Saturday, the government wants to lock him up in a cage, and conservatives enthusiastically agree. Why do they look at illegal drugs so differently?

Here again is Paul Larkin: “Rescheduling cannabis as Schedule III will lead to increased use, and some users will drive under its influence, crash their vehicles, or harm and kill other drivers.” I suppose that in the 1930s someone like Mr. Larkin probably said: “Ending Prohibition of alcohol will lead to increased use, and some users will drive under its influence, crash their vehicles, or harm and kill other drivers.” Why isn’t Mr. Larkin saying that alcohol should be banned because having legal alcohol will lead to increased use, and some users will drive under its influence, crash their vehicles, or harm and kill other drivers? Does he not care about the thousands of Americans killed every year by drunk drivers?

Conservatives may believe in individual liberty and personal freedom, but not if they include the right to take drugs. Conservatives may believe in property rights, but not if that property contains drugs. Conservatives may believe in the Constitution, federalism, and limited government, but they are willing to ignore these things to fight the drug war. Conservatives may believe in capitalism, the free market, and free enterprise, but not if these things involve drug “trafficking.”

A free society must include the right to use drugs and sell drugs — no matter how addictive, dangerous, unhealthy, and deadly they might be.

Originally published by the Future of Freedom Foundation.

Greenland: Trump’s Folly

https://mises.org/mises-wire/greenland-trumps-folly

State “Dominion” versus Property Rights

https://mises.org/mises-wire/state-dominion-versus-property-rights

 

Mises Wire Guns Against the State

https://mises.org/mises-wire/guns-against-state

 01/22/2026

•Mises Wire•Marisa Jarquin

Self-defense and gun ownership are constantly being attacked in modern discourse and by the mainstream media, yet their legitimacy rests on principles far older than any constitution, preceding and transcending any political framework. The importance of self-defense lies in its role as a safeguard against both private and state aggression. Unlike modern states, which increasingly disarm their citizens and leave them defenseless, a private-law society would place no restrictions on the individual ownership of firearms or other weapons. In a genuinely free society, the preservation of liberty does not depend on armies or governments but on morally responsible individuals capable of self-reliance. Security must never be entrusted to the very institution that holds the monopoly on force; it must remain in the hands of the people themselves.

The School of Salamanca—a group of 16th-century theologians and jurists—developed a profound understanding of natural law, laying the groundwork for modern concepts of individual liberty and resistance to tyranny. Among them, Francisco de Vitoria and Francisco Suárez affirmed self-defense as an inalienable right, grounded in divine natural law and applicable to individuals and communities, including cases of resistance to oppressive authorities. It is fundamental to emphasize that the Salamanca scholastics did not create natural law, but rather understood and articulated it.

Natural law, being intrinsically linked to human nature, is not a historical invention or cultural construct, but rather a discovery of universal and timeless principles. According to these scholars, since human nature remains constant across time and cultures, natural law has always been valid and always will be. Although Hoppe, in A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, distances himself from how the natural rights tradition “has come to be” in its contemporary formulation, noting that his approach “owes nothing to this tradition as it stands,” he himself admits that it is possible to interpret his argumentation ethics as belonging to a “rightly conceived” natural rights tradition. Argumentation ethics may well represent the most rigorous and philosophically defensible justification for property rights, this approach arrives at the same conclusions as the Salamanca scholastics through a different, arguably more secure, path.

In their own words, as documented in The Catholic Second Amendment by David B. Kopel, Francisco de Vitoria—building on Thomas Aquinas’s framework of self-defense—differentiated between what a person “wills” and what they “intend.” For example, someone with gangrene may “will” the amputation of their arm to survive but does not “intend” the amputation itself as the primary goal. Similarly, in self-defense, a person may “will” the death of an attacker as an outcome of stopping the assault but does not “intend” it as the main objective. This right to self-defense extends to a child protecting themselves from a murderous father, a subject resisting a homicidal king (provided it does not destabilize the kingdom), and even opposing an evil pope. Francisco Suárez described self-defense as “the greatest of rights,” inherent to both individuals and communities, encompassing the right to resist tyrants.

Suárez further clarified that self-defense does not depend only on external property ownership, noting that even Franciscan monks—who forgo material possessions—have a natural right to defend their bodies and the items they use. The idea of Suárez resonates deeply with the concept of “self-ownership” outlined by Murray Rothbard. In works such as The Ethics of Liberty, Rothbard argues that every individual is the absolute owner of their own body, which forms the ethical foundation of all property rights. In the same work, Rothbard conceives of property rights as necessarily encompassing the authority to defend them:

If every man has the absolute right to his justly-held property, it then follows that he has the right to keep that property—to defend it by violence against violent invasion…. To say that someone has the absolute right to a certain property but lacks the right to defend it against attack or invasion is also to say that he does not have total right to that property.

Kinsella, in Legal Foundations of a Free Society, argues that our rights over our own bodies arise from the fact that we exercise direct and immediate control over them, following Hoppe’s reasoning. In contrast, property rights over external, previously-unowned resources emerge through original appropriation or through voluntary transfer. Because I have direct control over my body, I have a stronger and more objective claim to it than anyone else—who can, at most, exert only indirect influence. However, when a person has committed an act of aggression, he cannot consistently object to being punished, because through his act of aggression he demonstrates that he holds the view that the use of force is legitimate, and thus cannot object to force being used to punish him without falling in contradiction. Self-defense is therefore legitimate. The aggressor’s actions show he accepts force as valid, so he cannot object when force is used against him, the victim needs no further justification (of course, proportionality of retribution must be considered).

Criminal injustices on private property—such as theft, assault, or vandalism—are widely recognized as illegitimate, allowing victims to respond with force. Hoppe notes, in Democracy: The God That Failed, that:

…if violations of property rights occur and the goods appropriated or produced by A are stolen, damaged or expropriated by B, or if B restricts the uses that A is permitted to make of his goods in any way (apart from not being allowed to cause any physical damage to the property of B), then the tendency toward a fall in the rate of time preference will be disturbed, halted, or even reversed. (pp. 10-11)

These violations, he explains, come in two forms: criminal activities and institutional or governmental interference. While criminal acts are broadly seen as illegitimate, allowing victims to defend themselves, governmental violations are often perceived as legitimate, making resistance difficult.

The defining feature of private criminal invasions of property rights lies in the fact that such conduct is broadly recognized as illegitimate and unjust, not solely by the immediate victim of the aggression, but also by property owners in general across society, and in certain cases even by the perpetrator himself who—at some level—acknowledges the wrongful nature of his act. From this recognition follows the principle that the victim possesses a rightful claim to defend himself, including through the use of retaliatory force when circumstances require it, and furthermore retains the moral and legal authority to impose punishment upon the aggressor and/or to demand appropriate restitution as a means of redressing the harm suffered. The state’s monopolization of justice poses a greater threat than private criminality, because its own violations—through taxation, regulation, or expropriation—are widely regarded as lawful and legitimate carried out systematically and normalized within society, despite often being even more harmful. Hoppe writes:

The distinctive mark of government violations of private property rights is that contrary to criminal activities they are considered legitimate not only by the government agents who engage in them, but by the general public as well (and in rare instances possibly even by the victim). Hence, in these cases a victim may not legitimately defend himself against such violations. (p. 12)

By disarming citizens, the state consolidates its monopoly on force. Access to firearms facilitates not only individual self-defense but also the formation of militias—voluntary groups of armed citizens—to defend communities against criminal and state aggression. Firearms are a tool for exercising the right to self-defense, similar to how communication platforms serve as tools for exercising free speech. For example, in history, authoritarian regimes rarely ban speech outright but control access to the means. A gun represents the last line of defense against tyranny.

Finally, as Hoppe states in The Great Fiction that, unlike the prevailing statist model—which increasingly disarms citizens and leaves them vulnerable to aggressors—a private-law society would impose no limitations on the private ownership of firearms or other weapons. Every individual fundamental right to defend their life and property would be upheld without compromise. Historical evidence from the The Not So Wild, Wild West, together with numerous contemporary studies, shows that societies with greater gun ownership tend to experience lower crime rates.

In a truly free society, the preservation of liberty does not rest with armies or governments. Gun ownership signifies self-sufficiency. It is essential for individuals who take responsibility for themselves, entrusted only to those guided by moral standards. Security—far from being entrusted to the aggressor, in this case, the state—must remain in the hands of individuals.

A disarmed society is not peaceful; it is powerless. Stripping people of arms does not create security, it enforces submission. Conversely, a society of armed citizens is not dangerous, unless, of course, you happen to be a tyrant.