Ben Doherty

Christian. Co-Founder of @Favor. Boston sports fan. Slinging Utilities at Utility Profit. CalPoly almost Alum.

[Ben Doherty @BenDoh]

This is beautiful, God is very good indeed

[Faithfulness Okom @AttorneyF_]

The Sermon on the Mount is the most important theological speech ever delivered. Not because it is poetic. Not because it sounds spiritual. But because of what it dares to do. It takes a wrecking ball to every pathway humans normally use to feel righteous about themselves.

Before Jesus ever spoke on that mountain, something shocking had already happened in history. The Law of Moses had done what no other legal system in the ancient world dared to do. Every civilization punished actions: assault, theft, fraud. But Israel’s God went further. He outlawed desire itself.

“You shall not covet.”

No king in Babylon tried to legislate envy. No Pharaoh tried to punish inward greed. No empire in history ever criminalized thoughts. It’s impractical. It’s unpoliceable. It makes zero political sense. Unless the point of the law was never about external control in the first place. Unless the real battleground was always the heart.

That already makes the God of Israel unlike anything humans usually invent. Man-made gods bless instincts. They excuse appetites. They baptize ambition and call it divine favor. But YHWH did the opposite: He confronted the human heart itself and declared it accountable.

Then Jesus arrived.

And instead of loosening that standard, He took it beyond human reach.

“You’ve heard not to murder. But if you hate, you are guilty.”
“You’ve heard not to commit adultery. But if you lust, you are guilty.”

He doesn’t soften Moses. He detonates Moses inside the human soul.

Think about this with intellectual honesty. No religion humans invent works like this. If people build a faith system, they build one they can pass. One that gives moral achievement, self-satisfaction, spiritual status. Something that says, “You can do it if you try hard enough.”

Jesus torches that idea completely.

He shifts the moral courtroom into your conscience. He declares that guilt isn’t just what you’ve done but what you wanted to do. Suddenly no one is innocent anymore. Not prophets. Not priests. Not kings. Not you. Not me. Everyone stands exposed.

And here is the devastating brilliance of it: Christianity is the only religion that intentionally destroys self-righteousness as a design feature. It does not leave pride standing. It does not allow moral boasting. It pushes humanity to the terrifying realization that if salvation exists, it cannot come from human goodness at all.

Which is why the same Jesus who raised the law beyond human reach… went to the Cross.

The God who demanded holiness provided it Himself. The Judge stepped into the judgment. The Lawgiver bore the penalty of the lawbreakers. No tribe invents a God like this. No empire imagines a story like this. No human heart naturally writes a script where pride dies and grace wins.

The Sermon on the Mount did not come to inspire us. It came to strip us.
Then it led us to the only place hope could survive: “It is finished.”

[Ben Doherty @BenDoh]

@spurs_four Didn’t the heat go all the way to the finals one of those years though? That’s probably the best argument for it

[Ben Doherty @BenDoh]

@chamath I lived in CA for 6 years, but moved to Austin in 2013 mainly for this reason. As someone who grew up in NH, the live free or die state, California government felt oppressive from the jump

[david friedberg @friedberg]

why not just raise income tax rates?

because your real intent is not to just “provide healthcare”.

you’re masking that you are proposing the creation of, for the first time in the 250 years of this American republic, an organized government seizure of private property from citizens.

you’re calling it a “wealth tax” or a “billionaires tax” or “millionaires tax” or whatever nom du jour polls well. but at the end of the day, it’s the seizure of private property from citizens by the government. citizens that earned money, paid their fair taxes on those earnings (53% if they live in California) and are now being told they need to hand over after-tax assets because the government has failed to provide promised services with the revenue it’s collected, and are now re-casting their own failure to be a socio-economic inequity that must be justly resolved... a slippery slope that has never gone anywhere good (see economic effects in USSR, Cuba, Venezuela, France and Norway wealth tax etc.)

the American founders fled tyranny in Europe and this amazing nation was populated by immigrants (myself and your parents) from around the world not just looking for a “better life” but for a place where they could have freedom from tyrannical governments that can take what they want from private citizens. a great nation borne of property rights, the rule of law, and endowed freedoms to believe, speak, or act. these principles led to the greatest run of innovations, successes, and widespread increase in prosperity, for all citizens, ever seen.

the citizens, the individuals, not the institutions, delivered this progress. those who invented, who toiled, who bled, who sacrificed, who took risk and persevered, who led, and who changed the world, are not charlatans, kleptocrats, or oligarchs. they’re what made us all better off. prosperity is a measure of america’s success, not its failure.

it is your principle that is so offensive, as evidenced by the broad disdain for your flippant flirtation with the darkest of human fantasy - socialism. you and other neo-socialists have led so many of us to reflect on America’s history and what it is becoming. that now leads so many to consider, so unnecessarily, leaving their homes for a place where everyone stands up to shout down the principle you suggest. because if your ideas are now considered moderate, it’s clear this titanic is sinking.

that a “simple tax” of taking assets that have been earned, through toil and tribulation, rightly taxed, and preserved, should now be unjustly seized, is your solution to a problem of obvious government mismanagement and outright fraud, tells us that your true motivation lies not in giving people healthcare but in cutting down success and deleting the system of prosperity and opportunity for all.

i don’t care, and neither should anyone else, what the sum total market value of a private citizens private assets might be. it is none of my business and should be none of yours. because, again, once you open that pandora’s box, we might as well study Lord of the Flies … there is literally nothing stopping 51% of citizens demanding that their government go out and seize 100% of the private property of the 49%.

want to give healthcare to people in need? do your job and fix healthcare. make it affordable. want to be lazy about it? then do your job lazily and raise income taxes.

want to take private property from private citizens who have paid their fair share of taxes and legally earned their property, then honestly declare that it is envy, not inequity, that you strive to resolve…

[Senator Rand Paul @SenRandPaul]

Today, I am holding a hearing that marks the beginning of something long overdue: the movement to finally Audit the Fed.

My investigation uncovered over $600 billion in quiet payouts the Fed made to major banks, while taxpayers got nothing but inflation and losses.Our expert witnesses—@norbertjmichel, @RegoftheDay, and @Wesbury —are here to help expose what the Fed has kept in the shadows for decades.

Audit the Fed. End the secrecy. Restore sound money.

[Ben Doherty @BenDoh]

@arturo___p @Austen Sorry I was MIA here. I actually am useless in regards to short term rentals. We’re focused on supporting long term renters and their property managers

[Ben Doherty @BenDoh]

This is the most ignorant take. REIT’s only own 500k - 600k out of the almost 90 Million single family homes in the US. Many of the homes they own were originally so old and dilapidated that they were abandoned. They actually lowered housing costs by renovating them and bringing them back on the market

[Ben Doherty @BenDoh]

@shaunmmaguire 100%. There’s a simple reason why Austin rent has gone down more than any city in the US, post pandemic. The suburbs of Austin has supported fast building

[Ben Doherty @BenDoh]

I remember always waiting to be picked up as a kid and would have killed to have a self driving car, what a dream haha

[Ben Doherty @BenDoh]

I'm very excited to take my sons to their sports games in the future, but also happy that they're under 3! The likelihood that my car will self-drive them to practice when they’re older is highly likely

[Ben Doherty @BenDoh]

@jliemandt 🤘

[Ben Doherty @BenDoh]

@MarioNawfal 🤘

[Ben Doherty @BenDoh]

@justindross 🤘

[Ben Doherty @BenDoh]

@Jason 🤘

[Ben Doherty @BenDoh]

@JTLonsdale @uaustinorg @Saronic @neuralink @basepowerco @MeritFirstUS 🤘

[Ben Doherty @BenDoh]

@jgebbia 🤘

[Ben Doherty @BenDoh]

@bgurley 🤘🤘

[Ben Doherty @BenDoh]

@realEstateTrent @AlecTorelli It’s not. It just looks that way when you’re using a devaluing dollar as the unit of measurement

[Ben Doherty @BenDoh]

We want to be shrewd & calculated, but not paranoid or worried. Tough balance, but it's possible and better for everyone