Comments by "Digital Nomad" (@digitalnomad9985) on "" video.
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"sabotage of the rule of law and personal enrichment via political power."
Son, that's the human condition. The wonder is when we manage to rise above it. That is the human rule, not the exception.
There is a strong temptation to pretend that humans are naturally good, and that the problems of the human condition are the result of some social construct, because we don't want to face the truth about ourselves. To the communist free markets; to the anarchist government; to the New Atheists religion, to primitivists agriculture or technology, to racists whites or blacks or Jews or whoever; is the root of all evil. The first part of Genesis DOES have something to say about this because it NEGATES the common assumption of each of the above "isms". Regardless of how literally you take the text, the MORAL of the account is plain as a pikestaff. The clear, harsh, intolerable, and absolutely vital and central message of the fall is that WE ARE OUR PROBLEM, not any externality or construct. As the song says, "You can run from yourself, but you won't get far. 'Cause wherever you go --- There you are." This is the starting point of clarity in history, sociology, and psychiatry; every study which pertains to the nature of humanity.
The only answer is limited government. Often the the system of the US republic is compared unfavorably with a parliamentary system, for instance, on the grounds of efficiency. The parliamentary supposedly more rapidly implements the sense of the majority. Such critics are mistaking a means for an end. The founders of the US constitutional republic were concerned with dissipating power, of keeping it from being concentrated and thus facilitating tyranny. Democracy is just one, even if the most important and radical, of the means to this end. "Checks and balances" were placed throughout the system. Gridlock is a feature, not a bug. Democracy may well be necessary for freedom, but it is certainly INSUFFICIENT.
James Madison, from Federalist 51:
The great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.
And C.S. Lewis:
I believe in political equality. But there are two opposite reasons for being a democrat. You may think all men so good that they deserve a share in the government of the commonwealth, and so wise that the commonwealth needs their advice. That is, in my opinion, the false, romantic doctrine of democracy. On the other hand, you may believe fallen men to be so wicked that not one of them can be trusted with any irresponsible power over his fellows.
That I believe to be the true ground of democracy. I do not believe that God created an egalitarian world. I believe the authority of parent over child, husband over wife, learned over simple, to have been as much a part of the original plan as the authority of man over beast. I believe that if we had not fallen...patriarchal monarchy would be the sole lawful government. But since we have learned sin, we have found, as Lord Acton says, that ‘all power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ The authority of father and husband has been rightly abolished on the legal plane, not because this authority is in itself bad (on the contrary, it is, I hold, divine in origin) but because fathers and husbands are bad. Theocracy has been rightly abolished not because it is bad that learned priests should govern ignorant laymen, but because priests are wicked men like the rest of us. Even the authority of man over beast has had to be interfered with because it is constantly abused. [C.S. Lewis. “Membership,” in Fern Seed and Elephants (London: Fontana, 1975), 18-19]
I am a democrat because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government… The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters. [C.S. Lewis, Present Concerns, ed. Walter Hooper (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986), 17]
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