Government for the people?

Before I ever decided what I think about issues like abortion, gay rights, a strong military, or any other hot button items, I had to decide what type of government I support. How could I really know what I think about abortion rights if I don't know what the ramifications of supporting that are? What is my philosophy about how government should be structured?

A FAITH GUIDED APPROACH

The children of Israel, God's chosen people, spent hundreds of years as slaves in Egypt. After God's miraculous intervention they were saved and delivered from slavery, and promised something better. On their journey to the Promised Land, they were blessed to see God's provision for them manifested in miracle after miracle. Since they had no governmental structure, in order to manage the peace and judge wrongdoing amongst the people, God had Moses set Judges in charge of each of the 12 tribes of Israel. God appointed Himself a High Priest in Aaron, someone to represent Israel before God. This constituted their government when they entered the Promised Land.

After encountering some difficulties with the Philistines, the Israelites demanded of Samuel (a prophet of God) that they be given a king. Samuel discouraged this idea, but they pressed him until he sought God's permission. Here is what God said to Samuel, in slightly abbreviated fashion (1 Sam 8:7-18):

"You shall solemnly forewarn them, and show them the behavior of the king who will reign over them. He will take your sons and appoint them for his own chariots.... he will take your daughters to be ...cooks, and bakers. And he will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves and give them to his servants. He will take a tenth of your grain.... He will take a tenth of your sheep. And you will be his servants. And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the Lord will not hear you in that day."

We can read further in vs 19-20 the response of the people of Israel: "No,... we will have a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles."

Thus, Israel got her king and as they say, the rest is history. What I find interesting is God's reaction to the people's desire of having a king. God told them that they weren't meant to be governed by men, which is why God told Samuel "Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them." vs. 7. God had set us a unique relationship with Israel that they were now rejecting. God knew what a king would bring, and warned them. They rejected His warning and chose a king for themselves, and each king, even the best of them, took what they wanted, killed their subjects, got drunk with power, led them away from God and enslaved the people.

If that isn't a direct, divine endorsement for limited government, I don't know what is.

I realize we don't have as unique a relationship with God as His chosen people do, but His warning is the same: we aren't meant to have men govern over us. Not just because mankind is sinful and will abuse the power. But also because we were meant for relationship with Him, and a love for a strong government to protect us and to provide for us, in reality, goes further than just having a differing view on government. It is a direct rejection of Him.

The Christian believer has been instructed by Christ to "worry about nothing, for who can add one day to his life by worrying?" We have been encouraged to trust God for our provisions, knowing He provides for birds and fish and won't hold back from us. So why do we look to government for health care, retirement, welfare, unemployment benefits, and the like? Don't misunderstand me, I am not saying those are bad things. But a good question for the believer to ask themselves is this: ultimately, where have I placed my faith and who do I trust? Who can and will make good on the promise to provide for me?

A SECULAR APPROACH

Thomas Paine: "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in it's worst state, an intolerable one."

Another quote from Paine: "There are men in all ages that mean to govern well; but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters; but they mean to be masters."

Patrick Henry: "The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and our interests."

Our Founders came here to escape the power that God had warned the Israelites about thousands of years ago: a strong government. As a result, before they drafted the Constitution we all know and love, they authored the Articles of Confederation. People often forget this document because, in part, it was a miserable failure. The Founders were so wary of a strong, centralized government that the government they created with the Articles was inept, powerless, and eventually, a failure. It provided for a loose federation of states, with a federal government so weak it had to request that the states share taxes. It didn't work, and the document was replaced by the more powerful Constitution we have now.

Fast forwarding to today in the United States, we have a federal government that controls our education, our retirement, our welfare, our unemployment, our disaster relief, and as of recently owns many of our financial institutions. It does none of these things well, as each program is in serious financial trouble. Yet with that truth in place we have leaders telling us we need to give them control of our health care because only they will take care of us. The same government that bankrupted our social security, is failing miserably at educating our youth, and can't seem to get the local DMV working efficiently is now asking us to trust them with our medical care and asking for public ownership of the oil companies. I'll address Health Care in another post, but I bring it up here to make a very specific point: we no longer have a population that fears government like our founders did. We now have serious socialist tendencies, even after defeating the Evil Empire just 17 years ago. In addition our government taxes us on income, then on saving that income, or investing that income, or spending that income, or dying while holding that income.

I think it is very fair to ask ourselves: when did we forget to be wary of government and those seeking to govern us?

Thomas Jefferson: "A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government."

I believe that a small federal government, working in conjunction with state and local governments, is the best course of action. I agree with our Founders, and I want to heed God's warning to the Israelites that a strong government will take what it wants, when it wants. I am inclined to listen to Thomas Paine, when he warned that even men meaning to govern well are still meaning to govern. And I will trust what I have witnessed, that even the best intentioned people have only limited foresight and wisdom.

Ronald Reagan: "Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, "What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power." But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or economically as the private sector."

Paine: "That government is best which governs least."

It is possible to debate issues like health care and taxes without ever realizing what the implications of holding our positions are. It is important to understand this fundamental point: what type of government we want and like, and what the consequences of giving the federal government more or less control over our lives are. People can disagree about whether the government should take control of health care, keep control of education, social security and the like. What they need to realize is what they're really arguing for is a strong centralized government, or a weaker centralized government. Being for those policies is desiring a stronger federal government to administer those services, taking them out of the private sector. In order to be able to do that, they tax more and "take the bread out of the mouth that earned it", which in my opinion is in direct contradiction to what our Founders and God have warned us about.

That is the prism through which I view things, and I believe the Founders viewed things. It is with that viewpoint I look and dissect the candidates promises to us, and the implications of such plans.