Everything in Moderation — Especially Government Power

American Thinker ^ | 4 Aug, 2024 | J.B. Shurk

[MtnClimber]

Americans must force the government back into its constitutional cage.

One of the most important lessons in life is straightforward: everything in moderation. If you eat too much, you’ll get fat. If you drink too much, you’ll lose your wits. If you play too much, no one will take you seriously. Temperance is a remarkably sound philosophy for living well.

Living with an eye toward moderation is about more than restraining from vice. Experience teaches that thoughtless excess undermines otherwise healthy activities. Reading books without taking the time to consider the meaning of their words can make a person educated but unwise. Almost everything in life is done best when done with earnest reflection and restraint.

You do not need to read through the correspondence of America’s Founding Fathers to appreciate their preference for moderate government. Philosophically, of course, they were the radicals of their age. They rejected the notion that an elite aristocracy should exercise power by divine right and fought a war for the revolutionary principle that “all men are created equal.” They defended liberty, property rights, and speech as essential elements of what it means to live. When it came time for them to design a government best equipped to protect these freedoms, however, moderation was the key!

The English Civil War of the previous century weighed heavily upon their minds. The fall of the Roman Republic two millennia earlier guided their thoughts, too. They understood the corrupting influences of power, but they also appreciated the carnage that corrupt governments wreak. Mercurial monarchs and political repression guarantee war and forestall peace.

The Founding Fathers’ spirit drove them to fight for freedom, but their temperance restrained their actions after achieving victory. It has been said that General George Washington could easily have made himself king

[MtnClimber]

Not an easy thing when you are dealing with marxists.

[Qwapisking]

just remember friends, “conservatives seek agreement while liberals demand compliance” L.Star

[Buttons12]

3 words in. “Americans must force...”

Force is out of the question. Everyone put on the spot will say for the record that force is never acceptable. And force is what it would take.
Advocates for moderation, in particular, are never going to force anything. History is full of temporary moderates between one tyranny and another. They don’t belong in the ring between, for example, a czar and a Lenin.
For a nation that manages to avoid defeat by an external enemy, the natural course is for tyranny to ascend and prevail over increasingly weak, fearful people, until the system collapses into ashes and ruins. After which the least enfeebled entities come along to scavenge, pillage, and build another oppressive state.
America was an anomaly. It had the Founders, a virtually open frontier to expand into, an ocean between it and Europe, natural resources and a God-fearing, brave people. Hardly any of that applies to the present situation.
Moderation? That will get you a good seat in the boxcar. But force? Heaven forbid!

[Sirius Lee]

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Experience has taught us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession, and when the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep." ~ George Washington

Half of the current American population willingly, eagerly, lines up to be sheared.

[antidemoncrat]

The Government is becoming like a pack of piranhas. The more they consume, the more blood in the water the hungrier they get.

[Jacquerie]

Want moderation?

Constitutional government is impossible without repeal of the 17th Amendment.