Replies

"If Congress can employ money indefinitely, for the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every state, county, and parish, and pay them out of the public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, the establishing in like manner schools throughout the union; they may assume the provision of the poor.... Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America."

And yet even some FReepers appeal to "general welfare" in defense of a federal program they favor.

Excellent article. I fear that America is headed towards the same destruction as other societies in the past. Yet...we should not lose hope because we have the promise of God:

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. (II Chronicles 7:14)

It requires humility and a turning towards God and the forsaking of our collective sins against Him (i.e., abortion). That will be the ONLY way to heal our land and bring God's blessings back. I hope and pray we will.

Fine post, Fisherman. I see some similarities between Alexis de Tocqueville and the Grand Inquistor passage from Dostoevsky.

Alexis de Tocqueville

For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, and facilitates their pleasures.

The government manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances -- what remains, to spare them all the care of thinking and the trouble of living.

Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor

We [The Government] will give them that quiet, humble happiness, which alone benefits such weak, foolish creatures as they are, and having once had proved to them their weakness, they will become timid and obedient, and gather around us as chickens around their hen.

They will wonder at and feel a superstitious admiration for us, and feel proud to be led by men so powerful and wise that a handful of them can subject a flock a thousand millions strong.

Gradually men will begin to fear us. They will nervously dread our slightest anger, their intellects will weaken, their eyes become as easily accessible to tears as those of children and women; but we will teach them an easy transition from grief and tears to laughter, childish joy and mirthful song.

Yes; we will make them work like slaves, but during their recreation hours they shall have an innocent child-like life, full of play and merry laughter.

We will even permit them sin, for, weak and helpless, they will feel the more love for us for permitting them to indulge in it. We will tell them that every kind of sin will be remitted to them, so long as it is done with our permission; that we take all these sins upon ourselves, for we so love the world, that we are even willing to sacrifice our souls for its satisfaction. And, appearing before them in the light of their scapegoats and redeemers, we shall be adored the more for it.

They will have no secrets from us. It will rest with us to permit them to live with their wives and concubines, or to forbid them, to have children or remain childless, either way depending on the degree of their obedience to us; and they will submit most joyfully to us the most agonizing secrets of their souls—all, all will they lay down at our feet.

We will authorize and remit them all in Thy name, and they will believe us and accept our mediation with rapture. We will deliver them from their greatest anxiety and torture—that of having to decide freely for themselves.

thank you Brother for this good post, it is sobering and inspiring at the same time.

sadly we live in corrupt version of our Founder’s brilliantly crafted federal gov’t, which was created expressly to function “by the People, of the People, and for the People” with authority derived through them from Christ.

we are now a “soft tyranny” as DeTocqueville put it. most voters in either spirit faction (party) are incapable of consistently executing their most basic duties in this Republic, let alone the high responsibilities envisioned for them by the Founders—having succumbed to the same corruption foretold by the aforementioned, or choked and befuddled by the legion of of ever increasing “to do” strands thrown round them by the legicrat spinners in their grand chambers. they don’t know how to draw real meaning from events via the imagination. they are no longer taught how to apply meaning to apprehend truth though reason. the great body of US citizens are now mostly the blind being led willingly by the corrupt.

still, God is on the throne! and the Founder’s Declaration and Constitution (His Constitution really), continues to task and frustrate the deluded pawns of the powers and principalities who rule here in the devil’s name.

more than two centuries down the line, we, a remnant now in this nation, can still shake them if we take Courage and fight on God’s side. “For if God is for us who can stand against us.” God continues to come to our aid. He hears our prayers. He covers our trespasses. He continues to bless our nation in spite of ourselves. Hallelujah! we can’t give up. we fight on under Jesus’ Holy Banner. Lord Jesus give us a “new birth of freedom under God.” may God save our children. and may God ever bless the United States of America. Amen.