Posted on 08/07/2015 4:40:49 AM PDT by Sean_Anthony
No matter what the polls say, no matter what the politicians do I believe that the American people still believe in freedom
Listening to the lies of the politicians as presented by the prattle of the biased it is easy to lose hope in a secular sense. My hope in an eternal sense is founded on the rock of an unshakable faith in Jesus, and so it cannot be shaken. However, in the secular resting, as it must upon the shifting sands of man in America today, hope as a measured commodity is all too often hopeless. Seeking for hope in current events, a diamond among the discards and a point of light in a sea of darkness, is seeking something positive among the gathering gloom of an empire in eclipse.
I don’t know about you, but I cannot focus on the negative trends of our current situation for long without at least contemplating depression and I don’t mean the economic kind. I am thankful I have a peace that passes all understanding and a hope that cannot be taken away, and I am also glad that I have a sense of History which gives me a context to frame the Now. For if all we have is the Now it can always be changed with the next headline, the next news bulletin, or the next press release. Having a historical context brings things into focus fitting the events of today into flow of time from yesterday to tomorrow.
Truth often becomes the victim of expediency. For what seems true at the moment may end up as the lie of the hour. Politicians bend truth like gravity bends light: the heavier the perceived need the greater the unperceived distortion. Lies can become so widely believed that truth is swallowed in truism. Lies become the accepted wisdom of professional pundits chattering endlessly, supporting that which ultimately must fall for those who seek to surf a tsunami into a safe harbor. The news is filled with half-truths and as my second favorite philosopher, Anonymous, once said, “Beware of half-truths, you may have gotten the wrong half.”
More the fool him. Those who voted for the current turd in the white hut obviously believe that wearing chains is better than being free.
Americans tend to focus on freedom and liberty, but they miss the underlying truth which is their basis: efficiency.
The founding fathers neither assumed that all men were good, or that all men were evil or bad. Instead they worked off the assumption that all men were, at least a goodly portion of the time, weak.
They were very aware of the flaws of government in Europe, and so sought ways around those flaws. Principle among these was the the basis for government at all. Royalists had long asserted that people were either anointed to rule by heaven, or cursed by heaven to live as peasants. But that idea was no longer tenable.
Though men of faith, they wanted to be very clear that government was created by men, not heaven, so could be changed by men, without approval from heaven. Thus to break the secular law also meant the punishment of men, not that of heaven, which if it did happen, was independent of government.
Next, they knew that as soon as the law was written, there would be efforts to neutralize and subvert it. The way to reduce this problem was by making many divisions and balances of power in government. Groups with conflicting purposes to act as a check on other groups. The US constitution is filled with such balances.
Finally, they understood the value of democracy, but also its limitations. Democracy is by far the most efficient form of low level leadership, giving the best value to those within low level groups. And this is the basis of the “democratic revolution”, that still sweeps the world, because it is just as easily grasped by an uneducated person as it is by a king.
Its limitations, however, is that higher up, democracy tends to break down, because people have far too many things to do than vote on every issue. So this gives rise to republicanism, the election of leaders to carry out the wishes of the voters.
At this point, freedom and liberty come into play, because they are essential to the proper function of democracy and republicanism.
But the biggest selling point of democracy and republicanism has always been efficiency. This is because efficiency is a constant, but freedom and liberty are different in different places. They are still there, but their definition changes. Yet no matter their definition, they are still essential to republican-democracy.
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