The Libertarianism of the Tuttle Twins Put On Display and Slain — A Presuppositional Reading of “Fate of the Future”

Just finished reading “Tuttle Twins: The Fate of the Future,” to two of my Grandsons.

The Tuttle Twins are becoming increasingly popular among Biblical Christian homeschoolers. All I can say after reading my first Tuttle Twins book is that parents better be ruddy well careful. This volume is toxic.

1.) It reduces ultra Libertarian Murray Rothbard’s “Anatomy of the State” to a child’s level.

2.) On the first two pages you find pictures of different races of peoples in a kind of multicultural setting.

3.) A quote from the book;

“Over time, these societies have created cultures — different foods, clothes, music, language, and religions.”

The problem with the above quote is that it is false that societies create cultures and it is false that societies create religions. In point of fact, it is Religion and People groups (as theology is poured over ethnicity) that create religions and then the culture that flowers is but the outward manifestation of a people’s religion and ethnicity. This Tuttle Twins book as it backwards. Culture is always downstream of religion. Sans the Tuttle Twin religion is NOT downstream of culture.

4.) Another quote from the book lifted from Rothbard

“The state is the systematization of the predatory process over a given territory.”

Certainly, this is likely true of any non-Christian state. However, this would not be how a Christian would define a state in a Godly Christian order. In a Christian order the state is not necessarily negative. In a Christian order the state is the means by which God brings order into a designed and very limited jurisdiction in concert with other governments in other jurisdictions in the same society. The Libertarian definition above of the State casts the State in a purely negative sense and pushes the reader (remember) towards a anarcho-capitalist type of position.

5.) Another quote;

“Most people in charge of the State want to do good things and help people — they’re not trying to be bad like gangsters.”

If the last quote above was overly negative in defining the State this quote is downright Pollyanna laughable. No child in any Christian home should be taught that kind of tripe. Children need to be told that the current State and the people in charge of the current State want to do harm and hazard to the American citizen and that the current people in charge of the State make gangsters look like Boy Scouts.

6.) Another quote;

“But these governments tend to always expand their power. Instead of just protecting the people, they begin controlling them and limiting what they can do.”

I thoroughly agree that it is a significant injurious problem that governments tend to always expand their power. However, the problem in the quote above arises with the intimation that it is always wrong for “governments to control and limit the population in what they can do.” The presupposition undergirding this statement is that the individual is sovereign and should not be controlled or limited in any way. Biblical governments, for example, should control and limit the population in what they can do if the population desires to do those things that are contrary to God’s Law Word. For the Libertarian authors of the Tuttle Twins the individual is sovereign. For the Biblical Christian God’s Law-Word is sovereign and because it is sovereign the government may well have to control and limit the population in what they can do.

7.) Another quote;

“Chief Ron says it’s never okay to use force in aggression, only in defense.”

This is the Libertarian cornerstone maxim called “the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP).” Of course it is utter nonsense. There are times when using force in aggression is required by God in his assignment to the government. For example, a Godly government would use force in aggression to put pornographers out of business. For example, a Godly government would use force in aggression against those who provide abortion.

The NAP prevents rectification of past crimes or injustices, so long as the original criminal has transferred the proceeds of his iniquity to someone else. In such cases those who have profited by ill-gotten booty can not have aggression visited upon them because their gain did not occur as a result of their aggression.

8.) Another Quote

“We’re people with rights just like them.”

Space does not allow to go into the details of all that is wrong with the “human rights” language. For our purposes here the Biblical Christian is more comfortable talking about the rights that arise out of and are a consequence of human duties laid upon us by the God of the Bible. Technically speaking, only God has right. People have duties. If we want to speak of “human rights” we better be very exacting in tracing those rights back to the authority of God’s word while at the same time demonstrating how if men will do their duty unto God the proper human rights will be the consequence.

9.) Another quote;

“‘The state is one type of government — but in society there are other types (of government) that don’t use coercion’, Mrs. Tuttle added. ‘Our family even has a a government.'”

Though it is not said explicitly the intimation here seems to be that the family is a government that doesn’t use coercion. A Biblical Christian still believes that the rod of correction is a proper instrument for parents. However, it is altogether believable to me that some true blue Libertarians would say parents using coercion are in error.

10.) Another quote;

“But ideally the government would persuade you to do business with them Rather than bullying people, they would have to be very nice and fair, just like the businesses we shop at every day. They would do their best to serve their customers.”

Here we see blatant in your face humanism. Notice the God of this system is the demands and desires of the customers. The customers and their demands and desires becomes the norm that norms all norms. However, what if the customer wants those things that God’s Law disallows? Should the government be very nice and fair and provide the customer those things? For the twins in the Tuttle home it is the desire of the consumer that is the lodestone by which all is governed. This is just humanism.

11.) Another quote:

“You know, there’s a name for this concept … it’s called polycentric law — when two or more governments compete in the same jurisdiction.”

If the previous quote was humanism on display this quote advocates polytheism. Keep in mind that law is always a reflection of some God or god concept. If there are many law centers in one social order that can only be as a result of many gods in one social order. Polycentric law requires polytheism. And for Libertarianism the god behind the different gods of polytheism would be the consumers (see #10 above) who choose which law (and so God) they prefer. There would be as many law systems and gods in one social order as there are consumers who prefer to be ruled by these differing polycentric law systems and polytheistic gods.