I hear today more and more people questioning the wisdom of the Constitution as the basis for our society. They say that it is an old irrelevant document of a bunch of misguided men. Men who really did not understand the true pathway to freedom and a better and more just society. “Today we know better, we know because of men like Marx and Engel told us how to create a better society”. “We know if we just follow their path we will end up with a Utopian society in which justice will prevail”, is the modern mantra. They say that the individual rights in the Constitution should be replaced with a more compassionate corporate rights that would benefit the society as a whole.
The question is are individual rights irrelevant should we abandon them for the good of the society as a whole? Is it good for society to deny individual rights in order to create a more just and equable society? Is that even possible apart from individual rights? These are the questions that we are face with in every generation.
To me the answer to all of these questions are answered in human history. Every evil act that we learn about from history is because societies did not respect individual rights. Whether it was the slavery and conquests of the Roman Empire, the plunder and murder of the vikings, the Inquisition of the Papacy, the various holocausts of the Jews, the oppression of the Czars in Russia, the murderous rampage of the Nazis and the Japanese, the gulags of the Communists, all these were failures to respect and uphold individual rights. The leaders in all these case deemed what they thought was right for the good of the society, (and that is always what is best for the leader in reality) and atrocities were committed on individuals. Every evil act is an act against an individual. It is ultimately individuals for whatever reason that bear the brunt of the “good of the society”.What we have to realize is that the body count from governments is far greater than what anything individuals can do. As bad as the evil actions of individuals, whether it is Columbine, or Murrah Federal building, or the recent shooting in Arizona of the Congresswomen, all these pale in comparison to what Governments have done in the name of “good”. Just a cursory glance at human history and you will see that the greatest atrocities are committed by governments. You may say that we can name the culprits but in reality all the evil kings of the world have been governors. My point exactly.
When governments gain absolute power over their citizens there is the potential for absolute evil. Lord Acton said it best “"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." The men who founded this country as imperfect as they were lived with the consciousness of the atrocities of the Kings and Queens of England. The tea incident was just the last straw in a string of Abuses that had been inflicted on people by the rulers of England.
The genius of the founders of this country was they limited the power of government. They created a system that gave individuals rights and limited the power of governors under the law. By binding all men to the law they limited the evil that man could do in the name of the state. You might say “but the United States is still a nation guilty of evil”, and I would say that is true, but our system is always been self correcting because it is based on Laws and individual rights. If you look at our country, slavery was abolished, Jim Crow laws repealed, Governors have gone to jail, why because ultimately the individual rights that our system guarantees have prevailed. People have prevailed when they demand the rights that our bill of rights and Constitution articulated. In fact I would argue that the evil that the US is guilty of was a failure to give individuals the rights that were guaranteed by our system.
If we think that some how our system is flawed, and maybe we can make a better one, I would ask you to examine where the real flaw lies. Does the flaw lie with the system, or does the flaw lie with the people? This is the great philosophical question I believe that we are debating today. Is it individuals who do evil or systems that do evil: or does the system merely give evil individuals a greater or lessor capacity for evil? The socialists, Marxists, and the Statest Liberals are quick to blame the system, “it is evil capitalism that creates the evil that we see in the world”. If this is true as they claim why did socialism, Marxism, and stateism of the 20th century do so much more evil than Capitalism? If you think global socialism is the solution that you think will solve the worlds problems then why is the body count from communism (socialism) so high.
Why should we trust a system that has proven itself to be more evil then the one that we have? It seems to me that you have to aggagerate the evil of America to even come close to the evil committed by the Soviet Union, and Communist China. Even if you say that our wars to defend our economic interest around the world, slavery, racism, ect. are terrible, and they are. You don’t even come close to the body count of the communism which is around 160,000,000. The problem is the system, when it gives evil individuals such a great potential for evil; the results are always the same, great evil! I would rather live with a limited potential for evil than give into a system that has the terrible potential for evil apart for a system laws that defend individual rights.
Only a system of law and of protection of individual right can serve this purpose because it limits the power and authority of government. In other words as imperfect as our system is we should want to live under the system where men are free and evil is limited. The whole idea that we can create the perfect world if we just had the right person is a pipe dream. History is littered with evil men who claimed to be “the right person” and who did evil in the name of good.
Remember we are stuck with any “Messiah” that we empower. If we think that some leader has the answers to our problems, that belief may not be played out in time the way, we hope in the moment. Once you go down the path way to following men rather than laws there is no turning back and the potential for evil is great. This has played out in human history over and over again, when the Russian people gave in to the Marxist, in reality they submitted to a greater evil than the Czars. When the German people followed Hitler and gave their rights to this “savior” little did they know they were submitting to the destruction of their nation and death of millions. Every leader has proven to be a false hope, why because they in reality are just as screwed up as you are. The potential for evil that is in your heart is in theirs as well.
The reality that we all must face is that we all need help, but in reality help from another human being will prove to be a false hope. Only God has the solution to our problems that is why over and over again we are warned in the scriptures of trusting men. Psalm 118:8 “it is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man. 9 it is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in princes.” Psalm 146:3 “do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save.” Only when we look to God can we in reality find the solutions to our problems.
I don’t know about you but I am sticking with the Constitution and looking to God.
Steven Wenner
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