The great debate of our time appears to be over how to make people better. One side believes that you make people better by passing laws. The other side believes you make people better by changing hearts. One side believes you can coerce goodness from without. The other side believes you can only create goodness from within.
There is a book that clearly documents the inability of law, in and of itself, to make people better. It's called the Old Testament. The long march of history has confirmed time and again the impotence of law to make people better.
Law can help define what is and what is not good, but it cannot make
people better - even at the point of a sword or through the barrel of a gun.
Goodness comes from an indwelling of the spirit of God which inexorably changes hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. It works no other way.
Utopia cannot be legislated. Goodness cannot be forced, however many legions of stormtroopers you bring to bear upon the matter. Every time a government arises "for the good of the people", history shows us that those who assume the leadership of those governments and take upon themselves the task of forcing their subjects to be well-behaved inevitably become monsters.
The United States is, essentially, a backward country compared to other countries of the world. Instead of our protection and our rights coming from government, our forefathers recognized that these things were our inalienable right and rather than needing kings and emperors to give its people these rights, instead it should be the people from whom the government should derive its privileges, powers and responsibility.
The US Constitution and Declaration of Independence marked a stunning change in world affairs, arresting for a time the power of princes and potentates. Unfortunately, those who would make themselves kings did not go away. They are still out there, chipping away at the great American Experiment, relentlessly seeking to regain the power to tell us all what we may do and to force us to obey.
I do not hold to that and when America falls back into totalitarian darkness once more....
I aim to misbehave.
© 2014 by Tom King
Goodness comes from an indwelling of the spirit of God which inexorably changes hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. It works no other way.
Utopia cannot be legislated. Goodness cannot be forced, however many legions of stormtroopers you bring to bear upon the matter. Every time a government arises "for the good of the people", history shows us that those who assume the leadership of those governments and take upon themselves the task of forcing their subjects to be well-behaved inevitably become monsters.
The United States is, essentially, a backward country compared to other countries of the world. Instead of our protection and our rights coming from government, our forefathers recognized that these things were our inalienable right and rather than needing kings and emperors to give its people these rights, instead it should be the people from whom the government should derive its privileges, powers and responsibility.
The US Constitution and Declaration of Independence marked a stunning change in world affairs, arresting for a time the power of princes and potentates. Unfortunately, those who would make themselves kings did not go away. They are still out there, chipping away at the great American Experiment, relentlessly seeking to regain the power to tell us all what we may do and to force us to obey.
I do not hold to that and when America falls back into totalitarian darkness once more....
I aim to misbehave.
© 2014 by Tom King
No comments:
Post a Comment