Originally Posted by
Ethereal
Think of a person you personally know that has a severe character flaw of some sort. Or think of a person you personally know who you would not want to have power over other people.
Well, guess what? That person is in the government. The FBI, the CIA, the NSA, the military, etc.
Some may note that every institution - not just governmental ones - have individuals like this, so it's not unique to government.
But here's the difference. Non-governmental institutions don't have the authority and the power to deprive people of their life, liberty, or property, so when someone with a severe character flaw gets into government, the stakes are much, much higher. And that is precisely why the founders gave the USA a written constitution with clear limitations on government power in the form of a bill of rights.
As understood by our founders, rights were basically absolute, meaning they were completely out of bounds to government. That is the exact opposite of how modern people, liberals especially, view our rights. Instead, liberals view our rights as contingent, meaning the government can basically suspend our rights if they have a "good" enough reason. But as our founders well knew, the government would always find a "good" reason to suspend people's rights. That is why the founders decided to err in favor of liberty. This is a very important concept, one that few people now living actually understand, let alone appreciate.
It was understood that people would err under any system of laws. So the question became: Do we err on the side of liberty or do we err on the side of authority?
For most of human history, civilizations erred on the side of authority. Indeed, the concept of individual rights was basically nonexistent until around the 1600's. Prior to that, it was simply assumed that some "king" or "emperor" or "prince" or "pharaoh" had a right, often divine in origin, to rule others without their consent. What made the American revolution so unique was its rejection of this ancient premise. The founders argued that it's better to err on the side of liberty than authority. And, of course, they were right, for reasons that history has already demonstrated over and over and over again.
Yet foolish Americans are currently in the process of returning to the authoritarian way, the primeval way of governing. And unlike many ancient societies, modern Americans do not have a firm religious and spiritual grounding to mediate governmental authority. Under the liberal regime of government, government has become an authority unto itself, one with its own complex mythology and rituals. In other words, a religious institution. Because despite atheistic assertions to the contrary, religion and spirituality are not vestigial. They are inherent. And people will instinctively seek to fill that void, whether they realize it or not.
So what is filling the void in modern society? The most powerful institutions, naturally. Namely, government and corporate institutions, with the distinction between the two becoming increasingly blurred.
Perhaps this is why I get so frustrated with idiots who casually surrender liberty in the name of "public health" or "national security" or whatever buzzword is being thrown around by government at the time. I struggle to understand how such a basic lesson of their own history can escape them. How can they be so myopic?
For students of history, especially American history, it's easy to see where this is all going. And it's not pretty.