Socialism Kills Updated ~ Matt Kibbe (Plus: Beer is Freedom)

Via Matt Kibbe:

  • What is the difference between a Democrat and a Socialist? Big-government types are constantly rebranding themselves. A “socialist” is someone who wants to see the elimination of the monetary economy, the elimination of prices, and the elimination of private property. A better name for Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and the radical left is “utopian statists.”

Beer = Freedom

Do not suppose that abuses are eliminated by destroying the object which is abused. Men can go wrong with wine and women. Shall we then prohibit and abolish women? The sun, the moon, and the stars have been worshiped. Shall we then pluck them out of the sky? …see how much he [God] has been able to accomplish through me, though I did no more than pray and preach. The Word did it all. Had I wished I might have started a conflagration at Worms. But while I sat still and drank beer with Philip and Amsdorf, God dealt the papacy a mighty blow.

Martin Luther, quoted in: Drinking with Calvin and Luther – A History of Alcohol in the Church, by Jim West.

Give men time. I took three years of constant study, reflection, and discussion to arrive where I now am, and can the com­mon man, untutored in such matters, be expected to move the same distance in three months? Do not suppose that abuses are eliminated by destroying the object which is abused. Men can go wrong with wine and women. Shall we then prohibit wine and abolish women? The sun, the moon, and stars have been worshiped. Shall we then pluck them out of the sky? Such haste and violence betray a lack of confidence in God. See how much he has been able to accomplish through me, though I did no more than pray and preach. The Word did it all. Had I wished I might have started a conflagration at Worms. But while I sat still and drank beer with Philip and Amsdorf, God dealt the papacy a mighty blow.

Roland H. Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2013), 213.