The Stealer of Souls

What is government? We speak endlessly about government, yet fail to give any real thought as to what exactly we are discussing, and so our arguments often flounder about with no real sense of what it is that government is or what it should do. Through most of human history Man has accepted government as a divinity, a substitute for God, and even some conservatives - and even libertarians - often fall into the trap of seeing government as an entity to impose will. A review is in order.

In Federalist 51 James Madison observed that if Man were as angels there would be no need of government. What did he mean by that? He meant that angels govern themselves and Men do not. This failure is what Christians call Original Sin; God gave one command to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and they were expected to obey it not out of fear of reprisal but because they knew they should. They understood that God wasn't trying to act as killjoy but rather that eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil would lead to something very bad happening to them, yet they failed to govern themselves and disobeyed the one order given them. It was at this moment that human government saw its genesis; Man refused to govern himself and had to have an outside force impose proper behavior on Him. This rebellion followed on the heels of an angelic rebellion in which (so says the Bible) a third of all angels turned to sin. Angels, however, are smarter than Man, smart enough to understand the full implications of what they did, and so there was no plan of salvation for them; they became not just the governors of their own spirits but the lawgivers as well. As a result, angels do not have government in the fashion that human beings require it. But Man was different, because He didn't think well enough to keep in mind what he is supposed to do, so other men had to act to restrain him.

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Thus, the Fall of Man and the birth of government go hand-in-hand, and what James Madison was acknowledging was that Man must be governed to some degree by forces outside himself. The first government was Adam and Eve over their children, or, if you prefer, the establishment of the family. Family authority is the first form of rule because it is the authority of the parents that teaches and informs the children, giving them the principles of self-government and teaching them how to control their passions. Man is an animal, with animal lusts, but He also has a divine spirit, a soul, that remains in His care, and he alone among the beasts can sense the Natural Law. Other animals act according to their natures, being driven by their emotions and needs, but Man can act against those instinctual desires, can starve to death in the midst of plenty if the need should arise. An animal will eat its fellow, even its mother, if it grows hungry enough. A human being knows this is wrong. But human beings also overshoot their own temperament, so they are not even governed by instinctive wants and needs. We all know the stories; Andrew Carnegie was said to have stiffed the waitress on the day he sold U.S. Steel, because he could never find satisfaction in however much he attained. Human beings tend toward excess of appetite. That is why the 7 deadly sins are enumerated; Man has an out-of-control instinct, even while he knows right from wrong. The philosophers of the 18th century were convinced in the concept of Natural Law, of a law that is written in the fabric of the Universe itself rather than simply a man-made construct. The American experiment is predicated on truths that "are self-evident" meaning they can be ascertained by any person who is really willing to take the time and trouble. But Man is a twisted, contrary creature who ignores those laws because of the joy of rebellion, or the joy of lust, or the joy of selfishness. In short, the Liberal view that Man is inherently good is a crock; Man falls horrible short of meeting the basics of Natural Law. Someone who knows what to do but fails to do it is morally culpable. In short, Man is inherently evil. Which means he must be governed from an outside authority to some degree. That degree is determined by how much the individual disobeys Natural Law i.e. the Divine Law. So government, like charity, starts at home. It can be viewed as a series of concentric circles, with ever expanding layers. First there is self-government, then familial government, beyond that there are numerous human communities designed to assist in governance; the Church, schools, circles of friends, the local community, on to the state governments, then the national government. (There are many who now seek to create a world government that would be over everything.) Each of these forms of government SHOULD be of lessening authority over the individual; self government is how Nature and Nature's God intended it to be. Or look at it from the perspective of philosopher John Locke; Locke's view of property was that it exists in a state of nature, a wilderness, and becomes private property when a person acts to improve it i.e. take it out of a state of nature. In other words, the person extends his personal government to a piece of property, and it becomes an extension of his personal governance. Groups of property owners create towns, create cities, counties, states, and nations. As each larger entity is created it is done so by taking a small share of the original right to self-govern that the individual has surrendered for the greater good. It is for that reason that John Locke believed a government derived its right from the consent of the governed; they are the ones who gave it its existence and who surrendered some of their autonomy to empower it. If Locke is right, indeed, if my analysis is right, then government should grow progressively weaker the larger it gets, or it is a tyrant. Tyrant. There is the word we are looking for. As in all human endeavors, something went wrong with government. The Bible says government was given "the power of the sword...to punish evildoers" and its primary function is to govern those who are incapable or unwilling to govern themselves. But it has rarely seen this as its primary function through history, as individuals of unscrupulous character have always managed to ensconce themselves in the halls of power and use this power of the sword to punish the righteous and to glorify themselves. Governments have been historically the private tools of the powerful. Consider the pyramids; elaborate tombs built by slave labor and by the money taken involuntarily from Egyptians through taxation, solely to to aggrandize the Pharaohs. They could force their subjects to do this because they had the power to kill them if they refused. Standing armies were always necessary to protect against rogue groups and aggressive states, but they have all too often been for the aggrandizement of the kings who used them to steal territory, plunder, and force their worship on others. Think of the wars of the 17th, 18th, and 19yh centuries as Europe battled endlessly over colonial possessions, trade, and political sovereignty. The populace had to pay for these endless wars, and had to provide soldiers to die for King and Country, a King who cared nary a wit about the lives or welfare of his citizens. Government was purely a tool to advance the glory of the king. And yet, Mankind continues to believe in the efficacy of government. With the receding tide of Christendom the West in particular has found itself without an object of worship, and so throughout the 20th century a new god was promoted, the god of the sword. The Progressive era saw the rise of a particular viewpoint that believed everything was possible with the proper exercise of governmental power, and Benito Mussolini was not an aberration when he created the concept of "totalitarianism" in the 1920's with his stock phrase:

"All within the state, none outside the state, none against the state.”

Mussolini believed that Man and State should not be separate entities but one, a gestalt in which the state is intimately involved in all aspects of the individual's life. Mussolini described it in these terms:

"The foundation of Fascism is the conception of the State, its character, its duty, and its aim. Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to the State. The conception of the Liberal State is not that of a directing force, guiding the play and development, both material and spiritual, of a collective body, but merely a force limited to the function of recording results: on the other hand, the Fascist State is itself conscious and has itself a will and a personality -- thus it may be called the "ethic" State....".

But he was only following in the footsteps of Marx, who saw the purpose of government as being to revolutionize human economic conditions through coercive use of power. Marx put economic activity at the top of the human pyramid, because he lived in an era with a large disparity between rich and poor, but he failed to understand that that disparity was the failure of Man to govern himself, and government became a tool to enrich those who already possessed much. Essentially Marx promised a utopia, a world free of grasping greed, of deprivation, of inequity by imposing grasping greed, deprivation, and inequity by force of arms. He failed to see that it was the very growth of statist power that made these things possible. History would prove Marx to be spectacularly wrong, and while Hitler tarnished the term "Fascist" the fascistic vision was really part and parcel with the Progressive Movement. Modern Liberalism deified the State as surely as did Marx, and every effort made by the modern Left is designed to advance the power of said State over the individual. That is why Liberals will labor to remove social constraints on bad behavior while writing new laws to control that very behavior; they want to remove the competitors to centralization of power. They make it impossible for teachers and school administrators to correct students, they make it impossible for parents to discipline their own children, they make it impossible for even punish criminals, or for law-abiding citizens to take up arms against assailants, then when crime runs rampant they propose to solve it at the national level with new laws that restrict the self-governing of the individual. All power must devolve to the larger institutions, where power can be exercised by a few self-anointed rulers. Always they seek to impose the power of the sword over the fundamental right and duty of self-government. Most people in the modern world agree with this, too. They may want to take things slower, but they are happy to have a "social safety net" which really has no business as a government program because it owes its existence to a form of pseudo-charity imposed by force of arms. Yes, there are people who benefit, and who may find life quite difficult without, say, social security, but this is something that should be done on a local level; charity begins at home. And that is real charity, too, not government forcibly taking from Peter to pay Paul. But several generations have grown up with the idea of government serving this function, of a society that guarantees not just basic rights but social rights. In point of fact, most recently written constitutions around the world incorporate a positivist bill of rights, ordering governments to care for individuals as if they were babies. The U.S. is unusual. And make no mistake; Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg bemoaned this very "failing" in the U.S. Constitution while in Egypt, suggesting they do no emulate the American approach. Why do people agree with empowering the State? Because it relieves them of the responsibility of governing themselves, freeing them to act as rashly, irresponsibly, as badly as they wish. In other words, it frees them to SIN. It's far easier to abdicate one's responsibilities, to outsource what you should do to an outside entity. That is not to say that all people who believe in strong government are sinners or bad people, but they have accepted this fundamental error in thinking, that government should act as god. Governments are so much more powerful today than they used to be because they have the benefits of an explosion of technology. Caligula, Nero, Genghis Khan, Ivan the Terrible, were all pikers as tyrants go, because they lacked the tools of modern societies. How could Ivan spy on his people when they could sit inside their homes and talk? Now we have x-ray trucks actually cruising the streets checking people out. We have internet spying, with things people say being open to the government. We have a leviathan of statist tentacles squeezing the public in ways never dreamt of by the worst tyrants of history. And modern medical science grants the power of life to the state, where before the tyrant had only the power of death. Government run healthcare means the tyrants own the souls of the public. It's not going to change any time soon, either; too few understand the proper role of government, and too many are happy to accept the intrusion of the State. As I have said, the State has taken over where the church left off, with Almighty God being replaced by Almighty Bureaucrat. Where once men put their trust in a beneficent God they now put their trust in a capricious State, which can produce the miracles they seek in a more open fashion. One does not see the Hand of God directly when praying for money to pay your electric bill, but the hand of the government is clearly evident, embossed on the assistance check. The most grievous sin of the modern era is idolatry; we are all worshipers of Caesar now. While the Lord may Giveth and Taketh Away, Caesar will assuredly taketh away a-plenty. And Caesar steals the fundamental role of government, that of Man over his own soul. That is why everything seems to be spinning out of control, why chaos reigns. Caesar is not God, but the usurper. Just as the first angel sought to replace the Most High, so too does government seek to glorify itself uber alles. Our modern governments are the spiritual progeny of Lucifer. We MUST get back to the original constitutional view of society or all is lost. Sadly, few seem to grasp this. Why do people agree with empowering the State? Because it relieves them of the responsibility of governing themselves, freeing them to act as rashly, irresponsibly, as badly as they wish. In other words, it frees them to SIN. It's far easier to abdicate one's responsibilities, to outsource what you should do to an outside entity. That is not to say that all people who believe in strong government are sinners or bad people, but they have accepted this fundamental error in thinking, that government should act as god. Governments are so much more powerful today than they used to be because they have the benefits of an explosion of technology. Caligula, Nero, Genghis Khan, Ivan the Terrible, were all pikers as tyrants go, because they lacked the tools of modern societies. How could Ivan spy on his people when they could sit inside their homes and talk? Now we have x-ray trucks actually cruising the streets checking people out. We have internet spying, with things people say being open to the government. We have a leviathan of statist tentacles squeezing the public in ways never dreamt of by the worst tyrants of history. And modern medical science grants the power of life to the state, where before the tyrant had only the power of death. Government run healthcare means the tyrants own the souls of the public. It's not going to change any time soon, either; too few understand the proper role of government, and too many are happy to accept the intrusion of the State. As I have said, the State has taken over where the church left off, with Almighty God being replaced by Almighty Bureaucrat. Where once men put their trust in a beneficent God they now put their trust in a capricious State, which can produce the miracles they seek in a more open fashion. One does not see the Hand of God directly when praying for money to pay your electric bill, but the hand of the government is clearly evident, embossed on the assistance check. The most grievous sin of the modern era is idolatry; we are all worshippers of Caesar now. While the Lord may Giveth and Taketh Away, Caesar will assuredly taketh away a-plenty. And Caesar steals the fundamental role of government, that of Man over his own soul. That is why everything seems to be spinning out of control, why chaos reigns. Caesar is not God, but the usurper. Just as the first angel sought to replace the Most High, so too does government seek to glorify itself uber alles. Our modern governments are the spiritual progeny of Lucifer. We MUST get back to the original constitutional view of society or all is lost. Sadly, few seem to grasp this.