badquaker.com is a web site owned and managed by the friends, family, and supporters of Ben Stone.
Ben Stone, by his own admission, is a bad Quaker. We at badquaker.com believe anyone can be a bad Quaker, if you try hard enough.
Below, you will find an explanation of Bad Quaker written by Ben Stone.
What’s a Bad Quaker?
To answer that, lets look at what a good Quaker is.
The people traditionally known as Quakers are actually called the Religious Society of Friends, and we at Bad Quaker have nothing but respect for them, their beliefs, and the hard work they have done during their 360 years of consistently seeking ways to improve the human condition.
Quakers vary widely in their beliefs and practices, but are perhaps best known for their unshakable position on individuality. Quakers hold fast to their belief that no one person should be honored above or below another. As a logical outworking of this position, Quakers formed the first true anti-slavery movement and almost single handedly shifted the established Christian doctrine away from the acceptance of slavery. Recognizing women on equal footing with men in the early 1600′s and consistently holding to that position through physical oppression and even torturous death, Quakers were the origin of the modern Women’s Rights movements.
Some other interesting tidbits about Quakers:
Titles of honor;
Quakers refuse to use or acknowledge titles of honor. That is to say, titles given to men or women for the purpose of distinguishing them apart or above other men or women. Titles like “Judge So-and-so”, “Officer So-and-so”, “President So-and-so”, “Father So-and-so”, “Your Honor”, “Your Highness”, “Your Eminence” or any other title used to honor an individual above the rest of humanity.
Likewise, standing, sitting, bowing, kneeling, saluting, or adjusting one’s attire upon command or for the purpose of bestowing honor are not practiced by Quakers.
To acknowledge authority or bestow honor by ceremoniously removing one’s hat or bowing or any other activity is to agree with the notion that some humans are better or somehow more important than others. This concept, we reject.
Swearing of oaths;
Quakers do not swear oaths of any kind. In addition to the practice being clearly forbidden in Scripture, the act itself is illogical and to some extent, insulting.
For example, lets say Bill wants to sell Jack a boat.
Jack asks, “Bill, does this boat float?”
Bill answers, “Yes, to my knowledge, it has no leaks and it floats.”
If Jack asks Bill to swear the boat floats, does he not infer that Bill may be lying?
If Bill is the type of person who would lie about the boat’s buoyancy, how would adding the words “I swear” magically change Bill into an honest boat salesman?
So again, the oath is illogical and insulting.
If Bill is giving a statement in a court of law and Jack asks Bill if he swears to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, is Jack not inferring that Bill may be lying when he speaks without this magic oath? If so, and if Bill is in fact the type to lie, how is it that these magic words suddenly convert Bill the liar into Bill the honest man?
What about oaths of allegiance and of office?
Again, they are both illogical and insultive.
If Jack tells Bill, “Join our cause!” and Bill responds, “I will join your cause.” are we then to assume Bill has not really joined and his honor is not really at stake unless he says the magic words? Are we to assume that Bill walks around on a day to day basis utilizing a loophole in honesty and if he fails to say the magic words he is never obliged to his statements?
What if the community gets together and decides Bill should be the final decision maker for the town. Are we to assume Bill will rob the town treasury unless he repeats some magic words swearing to follow edicts written on some paper?
Quakers understand that when one speaks one is either telling the truth to the best of one’s knowledge or they are telling a lie. There is no third choice in the category of truth labeled, “Oath Truth”. If one is honest but mistaken, adding magic words do not change the outcome. If one is lying, adding magic words can’t change the lie. And if one has honor one will tell the truth with or without the added burden of magic words. If one lacks honor, it cannot be conjured using magic words.
Bad Quakers:
Where Bad Quakers part with good Quakers is in the area of self defense. Quakers tend to be pacifists. And while Bad Quakers appreciate and respect that position, and even agree that was certainly the position Jesus took while on Earth, Bad Quakers are not pacifists. Bad Quakers tend to be armed at all times, and are willing to defend not only themselves but their friends, loved ones, property, and at times even strangers.
More on Bad Quakers:
Bad Quakers embrace the Zero Aggression Principle or ZAP.
Bad Quakers recognize the State as an entity that exists by the use of aggression, lies, and theft. Therefore the Bad Quaker rejects the State as a legitimate form of government. Bad Quakers do not reject government. Bad Quakers realize that government, when entered into and maintained by peaceful voluntary means, can be legitimate. But when government adopts the State as its method of existence, it is no longer legitimate. The Bad Quaker understands that every act of the State, no mater the short term result, will produce evil.
While embracing the ZAP and acknowledging the State as the vehicle of evil on Earth, the Bad Quaker must embrace peaceful methods of resisting the State. The Bad Quaker understands that the State is economically and morally unstable, and therefore doomed to fail. But the Bad Quaker also understands that if the State falls at any stage prior to its maturity, it will simply grow back. Therefore, while individually working to separate ourselves from the State, and remaining dedicated to educating the masses as to the evil nature of the State, the Bad Quaker must not actively assist the collapse of the State.
Now, as to what Bad Quakers are not:
We are neither organized nor are we an organization.
We have no membership and we certainly follow no leader.
We have no manifesto and we neither have nor hold to any constitution written by the hand of a human.
We are free in our thoughts and we seek to be free in our day to day lives.
We ask no one to be our servant, and we refuse to serve others by any means other than our own choice.
We are enemies of the State, but we are not combatants of the State.
Ben Stone
2011
Bad Quaker. I like it. I was brought up a good Quaker but fell out with them when I didn’t fit. I thought for myself and didn’t accept their authoritarian so-called consensus. Nor did I understand the authoritarian elders and how they used power. So I left.
I do still like much of what they supposedly stood for. But I still don’t fit. I’m not a lefty vegetarian who thinks big government will fix all my problems as the local group seem to think.
I’m a Zen Buddhist of the Soto discipline. I’m also a former US Marine. I’m a peace loving hippy for sure, but I recognize that even peaceful beings must defend themselves and the world they live in in order to survive. Money is trust. How you can collect interest on trust has baffled me my whole life. Our obsession with Nation-States is so incredibly perverse I can scarcely believe people are fooled by it’s presence. So, while the world rips itself apart and pretends it’s a Pheonix I will continue to answer to my own conscience before the laws of men, do my best to live my life in harmony with Nature, and protect what must be protected in order to live and prosper. For those of you who call that being a Bad Quaker, greetings, and I hope you don’t mind if a Buddhist tags along. =)
Greetings Friend, and welcome aboard.
Well…they finally went public last week and let the cat out of the bag! The Royal Canadian Mint wants the peoples (the citizens) help to create an app to use their digital currency because hard currency is out dated, expensive to produce and keep in circulation and more secure LMAO. I dunno maybe its just me but I think we have arrived. The ultimate method of control…I’m not a religious person but I do remember some stories from my youth, (I did attend some bible scool activities), where the beast will prevent those from buying or selling save for the ones who have his number. I was hoping to be left alone and remain anonymous but it looks like me and the beast have rendevous with destiny. DAMN!
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Like Glen Winstead, I found this website via Dr. Higgs article picked up by Lew Rockwell.com. I, too, have spent a lifetime arriving at position described by Ben as a Bad Quaker. I’m not an armed human being, but I would defend to the best of my ability my person, my family, and my property, if attacked. I’m in Brazil now and the website is a blog called Liberdade no Jardim da Serra Gaúcha. In February, I’ll donate to this site.
I was *not* educated by going to the elite Friends Seminary NYC prep school, which was mostly staffed by leftist progressive Democrat Party- and neoelitistcon-sympathizing admins and teachers. Very painful experience in many ways, especially for me as someone who believes in being respectful of others and the non-aggression principle generally, at least as a mode of conduct I believed in then, before I knew the term NAP. And this is the same schools that serve the obama and clinton kids — quite a shameful indictment of the Society of Friends and the values they are supposed to strive for and the company they choose to keep instead. Friends Seminary even had the gall to celebrate obama’s election with an entire “Day of Reflection”, just based on the fact that he was the first black president. Nothing but pure racism, the exact opposite of judging a person based on the content of their character, especially considering obama was openly promising to escalate the Wars, among the rest of the authoritarian Democrat agenda. And Friends Seminary collaborates with the local New York City government politicians and takes state freebies and “honors” all the time. Disgusting. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, considering politics, and institutional self-defense, but it still goes against everything they claim to stand for. And the ultimate hypocrisy was the embarrasing sham theater of “decision-making by consensus”, which basically consisted of the administration having a comment period, when usually the same participants every time would ‘share their thoughts’, followed by the Alpha-Males and Females announcing the “consensus”/”decision” that we all somehow made, and the rest of us peaceful souls who didn’t see the point filing out the Meeting House somewhat baffled and tired. “What was that about? Didn’t we just reach the decision the administration wanted/was acceptable in the first place?” Only the Alphas were allowed to debate. Everyone else had to either share once, or preferably remain silent. Again, an utter sham. In reality the important decisions are made by the administration, of course. The ultimate juicy tidbit I was told by one of the teachers during my years there was that the Society is closely tied in with the CIA. Now, I have no idea whether he was joking (he sounded stone-cold serious), but considering all the **** that has happened in the last 12 years in this world, I can’t say I would be surprised very much. After all, it’s obvious that a lot of these “Quakers” are very powerful people throughout the establishment elite in the MSM, banking, education, industry, and all sorts of places. Pretty scary. I should have buried my head in the books and done my homework, but I’m too much of a rebel, freethinker and scoundrel to follow orders.
)
Raised by mostly-atheist parents, later in life I became a Quaker. Wait, that’s not quite accurate… I discovered some friends and neighbors were Friends, joined them at Meeting a few times – and realized that I’d been a Quaker all along, without knowing it.
I became a full Member after attending for some years. I was wondering what I’d say to the Clearness Committee when the subject of self-defense came up. But they never asked. I recognize the deep truth of “no Outward Weapons” as per Fox, and Jesus. Being prepared to do battle, leads one to project an attitude of being prepared to fight, which draws negative attention, which can cause unnecessary bloodshed. Yet, I remain a not-perfect person; for all that I idealize perfect non-violence, I could not stand by and watch my daughter or wife get raped. I might allow someone to make off with my material goods unharmed, but if it were a sociopath that would injure or kill me even after taking my goods, I could not allow that to happen. It’s never a simple choice.
Too many Quakers promote reliance on the State, and readily promote left-wing “solutions” for problems in society.
Thanks to the article by my hero, Bob Higgs, I have arrived here. Over my 67 years I have made the transition from cog in the machine to Libertarian Anarchist Bad Quaker. I never knew that the Quakers could teach me so much.
Bravo on your site.
I’m a very Bad Quaker indeed.
I literally can’t believe I’m just seeing this blog now. I’ve been sitting here for 45 minutes reading. Major kudos, love your work.
Thanks Anton!
I guess I am a bad Amishman. Thanks to your post on Gary Johnson’s G+ page I found this.
Welcome Ed, good to see you.
Bad Quaker… I like it.
I once had a Muslim roommate, and we would sometimes discuss the similarities and differences in our faiths. Once I said something about people’s perceptions and ‘good christians’ demanding/expecting certain behavior from others, and he gave me a really interesting example from his life… He said, “Yes, a good Muslim would do that. But, alas, I am not a very good Muslim.” If only the thumpers I knew held themselves in such esteem, instead of crusading against specks while ignorant of beams.
Well said, UncleSim.
I am by genetics and choice a bad Old Order Mennonite:)
That’s highly acceptable Jim.
Leon Russell is a gun totin’ anarcho Quaker?? Who knew?
I guess I am closer to a Good Quaker than a Bad Quaker in that I choose not to arm myself, but I respect the personal choices of Bad Quakers to do otherwise for self-defense purposes.
Foudn this blog while looking for quakers on von mises. Great find! I am also a Libertarian Friend from Venezuela….Greetings
I love this! Happen to live just down the street from a Friends church and always wondered what they believed in. Seems my Libertarian leanings have found other groups of a similar mindset. Bravo!