“To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people is a chimerical [fanciful] idea” (James Madison).
Government has always been a necessary evil in the world, and it behooves those who love power and control over others to not only enhance that power and control by expanding government but also to persuade their citizens that government is the source of their liberty and happiness. The Democratic Party certainly preaches and practices that and has convinced countless Americans that it is true. Indeed, for many, government is basically the center and all-sustainer of their existence. Kamala will even buy you a car seat for your baby if you need one. The ones she lets live.
But as James Madison said, and all of our Founders knew, it isn't the government that produces freedom and happiness or gives them to you. Whatever the government gives, it can take away. The government limits freedom by passing laws that restrict human activity. Now, some of this is necessary, of course; we can’t have murderers, thieves, rapists, etc. running loose throughout society. But still, the laws against murder, etc., do restrict the murderer’s freedom to murder. This is why we call government a “necessary” evil: “necessary” to protect honest citizens from barbarians internal and external, but “evil” because no institution in human history has done more thieving and murdering than the government. Such has been a problem humans have been trying to solve for a long time and with almost no success. How can barbarians protect us from barbarians?
It isn't the government that gives freedom. God endowed people with liberty (the Declaration of Independence being our witness). What Madison says above is 100% correct--the more virtuous a people are, the less government they will need. The less government they have, the freer they are. Simple.
However, the contrary is true. The less virtue the people have, the more they will need the government to control them. And again, the more government, the less freedom. This is exactly what the Left, in America and around the world, want: less “virtue” among the people. The government is the Left’s god, and the more societal chaos caused by evil people, the more government becomes necessary. Just what the Left ordered.
If we want America to truly be free, we had better return, post haste, to the moral virtues upon which our Founders built the country. Even when the Judeo-Christian moral code was almost universally accepted in the United States (as it was up until the 1960s), the country still needed SOME government because not all Americans chose to practice self-control, restrain themselves according to the dictates of God, and practice “love thy neighbor as thyself.” The less self-restraint there is among the people, the more government becomes necessary. Yet, when the government refuses to restrain itself, who controls it? The people are supposed to (at least in our democratic republic, and have done so at times in the past). But if the people become less virtuous and thus more reliant on the government, the whole system becomes out of whack because the government NEVER controls itself. And as a result, freedom suffers.
It is plain to see by anyone with moral eyes to behold that the more America has removed God from its society, the more corruption, wickedness, and chaos that has been produced among the people. Hence, the call for more government. Therefore, there is less freedom.
Just what the Left ordered.
“The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.” (Thomas Jefferson). Just what the Left ordered.
“When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.” (Jefferson again) Just what the Left DOESN’T want ordered.
When there is cancer in the body, some horrible, deadly corruption, doctors must attempt to remove that corruption and restore the body, as much as possible, to its previous health and purity. When there is corruption, evil, in a political body (government), it behooves the people to remove that depravity as quickly and thoroughly as they can, and “restore its lost principles,” as Jefferson said. The problem is, as Madison said, if there is no virtue in the people, then the government can’t lead them to freedom and happiness. We get the government we elect, and if we elect unvirtuous corruption—which America has done too often in the last few generations—we suffer the consequences we have been enduring.
And when we forget what “virtue” is—and truly, too many Americans have indeed done so—then we have little hope. Governments aren’t virtuous; people are. And when people elect the government, as in a democratic republic, they get virtue or evil, slavery or misery, depending upon their own character and thus whom they elect. Those who love power love government and hate virtue. It is why the people must be constantly vigilant, constantly taught excellence and virtue, and forever educated in the qualities that will produce true freedom and happiness. America has done an abysmal job of that in recent decades, and again, we are seeing the results in the decadence, perversion, and depravity in society and in the corrupt, overbearing government WE keep electing. We have nobody to blame but ourselves.
And it’s just what the Left ordered.
The constant refrain of wise men throughout history—not just our Founders—is that an unvirtuous people cannot be free. “Their passions forge their fetters,” as Edmund Burke said. And that lesson of history has been playing itself out in the United States over the last few decades, mainly via the Democratic Party and the Deep State.
Elect virtue or become a slave.
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