This article is not anti-religious, not intending to show disrespect for those who find meaning in gods. The author is a spiritually oriented libertarian. This is just about the meaning of words.

Words

The biggest laugh I remember getting was when a good friend, who was the son of a major Billy Graham evangelist, asked me what a good word for “meaningless' was, and without hardly a blink I responded “Theological.”

Words are supposed to refer to things, qualities, actions or concepts. Do not expect a full inventory of grammar here, just a few essentials about a few nouns.

Statements about “god” and “gold” can be true, false or just meaningless. The easy part is the truth, namely that “god” is a word and that “gold” is real and is valuable.

Antony Flew, in an exchange called “ Theology and Falsification ” makes the point by means of the following parable:

“Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, ‘Some gardener must tend this plot.' The other disagrees, ‘There is no gardener.' So they pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. ‘But perhaps he is an invisible gardener.' So they set up a barbed-wire fenced. They electrify it. They patrol with bloodhounds. (For they remember how H. G. Wells's The Invisible Man could be both smelt and touched though he could not be seen.) But no shrieks ever suggest that some intruder has received a shock. No movements of the wire ever betray an invisible climber. The bloodhounds never give cry. Yet still the believer is not convinced. ‘But there is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensitive to electric shocks, a gardener who has no scent and makes no sound, a gardener who comes secretly to look after the garden which he loves.' At last the Sceptic despairs, ‘but what remains of your original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?'”

A noun refers to an entity, quality, state, action, or concept. The entity, quality, state, action or concept are said to be the referent of the corresponding noun. “God” is a noun that has no referent, just like “unicorn.” Unicorn, in the meantime, has literary value and is a simple combination of the characteristics of a horse and a being with one horn.

Another way of “seeing through” the game of god-talk is the way “instincts” were imputed to animals or people to explain certain behaviors. Perhaps there is something you could call “instinct” when newborn animals always begin life with certain specific behavior patterns, such as seeking the mother's teats. It truly is an inbuilt mechanism. However, when you see a person consistently put ten percent of their paycheck into a savings account and someone seeks to explain why that person does it, no information is imparted, and no explanation really occurs when you answer that it is due to an instinct to save.

Things

The other g-word is very real. It has a very real referent. Its referent is true value. What we normally call “money” is like the former g-word, referring not to something of true value but to paper. The paper dollar refers at best to trust in the U.S. government to honor its debts. Should that trust erode enough, the economy of the United States would fall into disarray, perhaps even that of the world.

Moreover, the trust is eroding. The value of the dollar in terms of gold, Euros, the Japanese Yen, the British Pound and other currencies is falling. The U.S. government is politicking to get other governments and central banks to back the dollar, to buy it. This will involve urging the selling of anything that competes with the dollar.

The U.S. and its primary allies, the Federal Reserve Bank, major member banks and the IMF are selling gold in order to drop its perceived value, thereby making the dollar seem stronger.

The American government and banking community rightfully is fearful. In the last U.S. Treasury bond auction the percentage of foreign buyers dropped from 25% to 5.8%. Pretty soon they totally stop buying the Treasuries. At some point, the foreign banks will begin to dump U.S. government bonds. This means a lot more than that the U.S. government must stop deficit spending.

The value of all U.S. Treasury Bonds, Treasury Bills, Treasury notes and Federal Reserve Notes would then begin to fall. Note that every unit of money issued in the United States is a “Federal Reserve Note.” The dollar is already falling. The dollar would begin to fall faster. Ever try to catch a falling knife?

Buy gold now while it is still cheap (an ounce is $919 as of 4/21/08 ), or silver ($17.48)

Oxymoron

In conclusion, let us consider the truth, falsity or meaninglessness of a phrase: “Limited Government.”

Is there a Being so powerful that it can create an object so big and heavy that it is unable to move it? (hint: I am not referring to a “god”) What if that object was a debt?

After all, “government” means “whatever has a monopoly on the use of unaccountable force in its domain.” Now let us turn to the term, "Limited." We know it means restrictions and prohibitions.

If you were told you could not travel to Cuba but did so anyway, the authorities would come down on you, and demand an explanation (or worse). It absolutely implies that the one doing the limiting (the state) rules the one being limited! (you).

Put the two together, and what we have is a perfect oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. The phrase attempts to convey the impossible idea of a ruled ruler, a governed governor! Either a government is able to govern without limits within its domain, or else it is not a government! Limits either limit, or else there are no limits! Do not kid me with talk that starts an infinite regression.

Even if you insist that government does some good, the power it has will be used to enhance and increase its existing power, at your expense, with obviously less and less being done that is good for you. Do you want to see good government programs shrinking; wasteful ones and evil results increasing? Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Why do we need government?

Government is the absence of market , according to Jim Davies, of Strike-the-Root dot com.  Another view would have it:

The primary functions of governments are to act as a mechanism to take wealth from some and transfer it to others, and to discriminate among groups on the basis of their relative power in order to determine who gains and who loses.

They are talking about the same thing. Under governments, things of value are exchanged without consent, by force or fraud. Things that you own or have earned by your brains and effort, morally and legally, are taken from you by thieves, robbers, highwaymen and by governments. The thief, robber and highwayman do not try to con you with talk about this being for your own good. Only the government keeps hitting you up time and again with the attitude that they are from Washington and they have come to help you.

I close with a couple of recent neologisms. I do not mean to disparage Ron Paul by these comments, not at all. If he could win, we would be moving in the right direction. But even in not winning, he is chipping away at destructive statist policies, ideologies and educating. Here are the new words on the block: Government has not been bad enough; now we have ClintObaMcCain to look forward to -- they're all the same, but the McCainiac is worst.

If you do not vote for Ron Paul, do not vote at all. NOTA!