“If man is not fit to govern himself, how can he be fit to govern someone else?” –James Madison
A very clear—and truthful—analysis by Mr. Madison, and it explains in a few words, the problem with most governments in history, and that includes the current American government. As I have noted countless times, the American Founders said that the country cannot succeed without a virtuous people electing virtuous leaders. Well, people elected Eric Swalwell, who is the epitome of vice and immorality. Swalwell is human scum, but what does his election to Congress tell us about the people who put him there in the first place? And do we really think the people of his Congressional district are going to learn from their folly and replace Swalwell with a paragon of Christian virtue? Don’t hold your breath. To Democrats, Swalwell’s great sin was he got caught.
America has a severe leadership crisis today—people who, like Eric Swalwell, cannot govern themselves and thus are horribly failing the American people. America’s greatest crisis currently is moral, a failure to learn from God and history, and it extends from top to bottom. Actually, it starts at the bottom, for a virtuous people would never have elected Eric Swalwell in the first place. Or, for that matter, any other member of today’s Democratic Party who believe that woman can kill their unborn children, that unlimited perversion and promiscuity (until it hurts them politically) is culturally acceptable, that men can become women, and visa-versa, simply by saying they are, who believe that men can “marry” men and women can “marry” women, that children’s lives can be destroyed, mutilated for life for a sexual lie, who have uncontrolled, foul-mouthed, toilet bowl tongues, who won’t defend the laws of the country, who rob their citizens blind through taxation and put the country in hopeless debt for their own political gain—any leader, Democrat or Republican, who believes any of that has a serious moral problem, and cannot govern themselves (or what they believe), and are thus totally unfit to govern anyone else.
That, folks, is what is wrong with America today. And again, it starts at the bottom. Rotten people will elect representatives just as rotten as they are. Eric Swalwell and California, anyone?
The great Plato wrote, “The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.” How many people in today’s America, and especially in our most important governmental institutions, truly “conquer” themselves? How many Americans, from top to bottom, are ruled by their passions, their lusts, their selfish pursuits, their craving for pleasure and titillation? People like that aren’t truly free; as Burke said, “Their passions forge their fetters.” If they can’t control themselves, some entity (usually government) will have to step in and do it for them, and increasing government nearly always means increased tyranny. “Virtue is the only good, and self-control is the only means of achieving virtue,” Antisthenes of Athens said. And, again, Madison: “If man is not fit to govern himself, how can he be fit to govern someone else?” Eric Swalwell. And hundreds, thousands, of others in Washington, D.C., and down to the very local levels of government. It doesn’t take an I.Q. above 50 to see the decadence happening in America today.
The fact that the majority never control themselves is not a new thought. John Adams, our second President, said, “Individuals have conquered themselves; nations and large bodies, never.” You can find, down through history, and even in American history, those individuals who have been able to do as Plato and Antisthenes suggested, “conquer themselves” and practice self-control. But the truth of what Adams said only needs us to view our nation today—half the country (Democrats) and not a few Republicans practice and or support the list of depravities I enumerated above. And because of the historic truth of what Adams wrote—truth on clarion display today—our Founders were dead set against democracy. A few individuals can conquer themselves; the masses, never. Thus, do we really want to give power to those masses? Our Founders didn’t—and didn’t.
We need men of virtue in government. As Madison wrote (The Federalist Papers, No. 57), “The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society, and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.” Elect people of virtue, and make sure they stay that way as long as they “hold their public trust.”
But, for democracy to elect virtuous leaders, it requires a virtuous populous. “To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people is a chimerical [fanciful] idea” (Madison). People, especially in a democracy, will always elect other people in their own image. Stupidity will elect stupidity like AOC and Ilhan Omar. Parasites will elect extortioners who want to buy votes. Promiscuity and perversion will elect hedonism and licentiousness. People who lack self-control will elect…Eric Swalwell.
It starts at the bottom, folks. Sadly, we have way too many representatives, in national, state, and local government, like Eric Swalwell because we have too many individual Americans like Eric Swalwell. “Is there no virtue among us?” Madison asked. That question can be conclusively answered by looking at the men and women Americans continue to elect to office.
So, yeah, “if man is not fit to govern himself, how can he be fit to govern someone else?” And that statement, another brilliant perception by an American Founding Father, goes a long way in explaining the current decadent, corrupt condition of the American government and nation.
Listen to your Founders, America.
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