Wait a Minute! Government Is What!?
Many people seem to be confused about just what a government is. The best description is a complex of political institutions, laws, and customs through which a sovereign authority expresses its will. Of course, that "sovereign authority" can be embodied in many forms - from a king to a politburo or even a religious figure. In the United States, the Founding Fathers intended the People to be that sovereign authority. The great American experiment is based upon the concept that the People are capable of determining their own, independent destinies independent of a supreme authority above them. The sovereign, being the source of all laws is by definition above all laws. In other words, the sovereign authority is immune from any attempts at curtailing the authority vested in it. Okay, so how does sovereignty work, where did the idea come from and why was the founding of the United States federal government unique?
God is the Answer
Now, wait! Before you start accusing me of preaching a Gospel verse, hear me out. It ain't what you think. Whether one believes in God or not, the fact of the matter is that our historical, political philosophies start in the Old Testament and the first contractual agreement, upon which all contractual agreements are based, between Him and us. It is the Ten Commandments. This group of laws tells us how we are to serve Him and how we are to interact between ourselves and organize our society. Right from the start, God, being the Supreme Being, was also the Supreme Authority. Additionally, since God created us in His image and likeness, embodied us with fallibility, gave us an intellect and a free will, He threw us into the universe with natural rights to confront natural law. There is a significance to this Judeo-Christian view, which was held as "self evident" by the followers of the Enlightenment and our Founding Fathers. Okay, so; let's follow the logical architecture.
God is the Supreme Sovereign who, through a religious organization, grants and validates an individual, or family of individuals, the privilege of expressing His sovereignty to organize society on Earth. This concept has been with us since Sumeria, when "kingship came to the world from on high". It has been with us from Biblical times in Egypt and through the Ancient Greek and Roman periods, where the rulers claimed to be directly descended from a god or were even declared a god, themselves! Through the Middle Ages in Europe, authority of European royals had to have, and remain in good relations with, the blessings of the Pope of the Church of Rome to maintain their power. This is why Henry VIII of England was so notorious; he said "screw you" to the Pope when he was denied a divorce and said he would head his own church, thus eliminating the Catholic Church's proxy of authority between him and God. That's pretty audacious, if you think about it. Henry, headed the church that gave him the sovereign lay authority to rule over his people. This set a precedent, however, because a handful of centuries later, the American colonists would do the same thing to George III. In essence, the American patriots were telling the King, "Yo George, we don't need you as a proxy between us and God; we're just as sovereign as individual people as you are!" And, herein lies the uniqueness of the Great American Experiment - it was the shifting of sovereignty from the King to the individual citizen! Where did the justification come from? Liberum Arbitrium! That's right; Free Will! If the royal families of Europe would have God as their authority, then they could not deny that God created us with Free Will and, if the Creator of the Universe gave us the ability to choose for ourselves, what King, Prince, Judge or oligarchy could claim that they had a higher, moral authority than God to impose their will upon us? Those Continentals were pretty slick; no?
So, what does this all mean?
Well, the Founders understood then what many today have forgotten or never learned; a legitimate government derives its just authority from the consent of the People. It exists to serve us, not rule over us. Additionally, it has no rights, but privileges granted to it by our society, founded in our pre-constitutional, natural and individual rights to fulfill certain, expressly delineated activities in our name! In other words, we were born with our rights; the government is incapable of having any rights, since it was merely ratified into existence.
Everyone is free to choose whether they believe in God or not. But, whether they like it or not, God is on their side. Our Western Civilization is cemented in the principles of our rights and freedoms being our birthright as human beings. If we were to eliminate God from our thought or from the Public Square, we would eliminate the traditional source of our humanity, our rights and our free will.
Are you beginning to realize why it is so important for communists, socialists, progressives, authoritarians and other miscreant left-wingers to get rid of God? It is so they can take away the bedrock underpinnings of all of your rights, grant total authority to the "state" and replace your religion with their political dogma in one fell swoop. Has it become clear now why Marx hated religion more than "capitalism" and why he would declare that "religion is the opiate of the people"? Is it no opiate; he was well aware that a belief in God was the greatest obstacle to overcome to impose his dogma on the unthinking world.
So, what can we say about government?
Are you ready? Aside from the definition we gave it above, in reality, all governments are an illusion! They do not exist other than as a legal entity! Think about it; governments don't breathe. They don't eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, procreate, sweat, cry, feel pain or hunger. They don't get sick or go on vacations. They are merely sets of principled agreements confined to pieces of paper which become binding upon a society after a ratification process. They are commercial incorporations just like any other corporate entity, such as U.S. Steel, AT&T, GM or Amazon. What we would call a commercial charter in the business world is referred to as a constitution in the political world. There is another thing that governments don't do; make decisions! Only people make decisions. It is a person or persons within government that make decisions, supposedly in our name, that create the overwhelming chaos we are forced to live with. So, the next time you hear the phrase, "the government did this or that" or "the government ordered this or that" or some other phrase that gives a brain and a voice to a non-existing, legal fiction, remember that there is always either a sociopathic or psychopathic human in the government's machinery behind the edict.
A Consideration to Muse Over
I will not get into the role of government in a free society in this post; perhaps I'll do that in another. I'd like you to consider this notion regarding our government. Obviously, I'm speaking as an American. If I, as a moral man, cannot enter your home without your consent, take your property with the threat of violence, deprive you of your rights, coerce you into doing something against your will or take your life, can I give that privilege to a government acting in my name? In other words, if I am a moral man, bound by moral principles, can I give the privilege to my government to act in an immoral fashion? The obvious answer to me is: absolutely not! So, why does this happen?
Governments are neither moral nor immoral, but the people who populate government positions run the gambit of human characteristics. Any government is only as good as the people within it. The founding generation created our federal government with the presumption that those who entered public service were virtuous and had a Judeo-Christian sense of morality. Times have changed. Our founders also knew the difference between society and government. This too, has changed. Our government has been polluted with people who have personal ambitions based upon turning the American people into wards of the state while securing their own power and wealth. It is a serfdom enforced by sociopaths using the government as a club to beat down independence and self-reliance. They are cock-sure that they know how to run our lives better than we do and they'll do anything they can to achieve this goal. Remember Uriah Heep?
Human History has shown us a few things that we should NEVER forget: the first is that a central government is the greatest threat to human liberty and the second is that people tend to crucify their messiahs and follow the psychopath that would most likely lead them to their deaths. There is no need for me to provide examples.
This is a great post. I will resteem this because I think everyone needs to read it! It's always good to remember our roots. Thanks for sharing (:
Thank you, Shelby. You have a name I have always admired since listening the the Historian, Shelby Foote! Have a great day!
Congratulations @getmgt! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPLong post, good read, well spoken.
Thank you, bashadow. I haven't been at this very long, but I never liked "cut and pastes", so I try to think things out before I write.. Cheers!
Hi @getmgt! I guess most people nowadays don't really care about the government. What they care about is how they will live their life everyday.
You are right. I often wonder if it is out of a sense of helplessness or a sense of priority. The problem is that, either way, a lack of vigilance often leads to a lot of blood and misery.