[Political Junkie Too]

Character doesn't come from Washington; it comes from within each individual.

What does this mean, that the politicians in Washington are robots and are exempt from demonstrating character?

-PJ

[chajin]

"Character doesn't come from Washington; it comes from within each individual."
What does this mean, that the politicians in Washington are robots and are exempt from demonstrating character?

I'm running off to a meeting :-) so I'll give a short answer. The two main thinkers affecting people around the time of the Founders were Locke and Hobbes. Locke, whom our Founders believed, said that ethical individuals come together to form societies with limited governments that promote natural rights and then lets the people control themselves. Hobbes, whom the tyrants believed, said that people were inherently unethical and needed a ruling government to make them do what they knew they should do, but couldn't make themselves do.

Conservatives follow Locke; progressives follow Hobbes. One quick example: conservatives support private charity so that ethical individuals join together voluntarily to help the poor and destitute; progressives support government welfare so that people will be forced to support the poor, which they know they're supposed to do but won't because they're too selfish and uncaring.

What Cal Thomas means here is that the government isn't what makes you ethical, as Hobbes would assert, but it comes from your own working at virtue, as Locke would assert.