Issue 6.15
This is a type of follow-up to last week’s article on Rulers and Republics. For those of us that desire and work for individual rights and freedoms from coercion, there is no question. We prefer a representative republic. The sad fact is that many in our country have opted for the mindset that supports the idea that rulers are a better way to go.
If rulers were always honest, kind and uninterested in using power to get gain, control people and enforce their ideas on others, rulers would not be all that bad. The sad fact is that power corrupts and, as the saying goes, absolute power corrupts absolutely. There have been in history and in scripture rulers that were just and were not a burden on their people. Even in those cases however, within a generation or two, their heirs or successors succumbed to the temptation to use their power to live lavishly and immorally and lay the burden of supporting that lifestyle upon those they ruled over.
In a democratic republic or other types of representative governments, the people in charge owe their jobs to the voters and there is at least the possibility of replacing them peacefully. When the people are ruled, they are the servants of the government and change seldom happens without violence and bloodshed.
Usually people want rulers for one of two reasons, both of which are based on self-deception or erroneous thinking. The first reason is that people do not want to be responsible. They want to have someone else make the decision and provide safety and well-being for them and perhaps to take the blame when things don’t go right. They think that a ruler that promises to be a good and provident king or queen will do as he or she has said and their own lives will be better or easier. Until those rulers start unilaterally punishing or killing those that oppose them or laying heavy taxes on the people to support themselves and their chosen “people” at the cost of everyone else, the general population doesn’t see a problem. Then it is too late.
The other reason is to gain privilege or power themselves as part of the system set up by the ruler. This requires them to turn against their neighbors, report dissenters or enforce terrible laws or policies, but it comes with the perks of the “insiders” and lack of punishment from the powers that be unless and until they fall out of favor with those powers – which happens fairly often. As you read history, the intrigues of royal courts and opposing kingdoms are interesting, but very few people actually come out of the process unscathed either morally or physically.
It is our duty and responsibility to study history, understand why what we have is the best available option short of having a perfect being as our ruler. In spite of the challenges and the gradual loss of freedoms we are experiencing, we still have much more individual freedom and opportunity than most of the people in history. We need to safeguard those privileges by informing ourselves, finding and supporting good representatives and making certain that they actually “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” That is their promise when they take the oath of office. We the voters must hold them to it.
Lynn West is a thinker, a teacher and a patriot. You can reach him through email at forgingthefuture2021@gmail.com or through this newspaper. Liberty is a state of being which must be continually created. These articles can help all of us discover the ways we can contribute to that outcome.