Government is not the problem, however…

Recently, President Obama addressed the graduating class of Ohio State University. During his address he said:

Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems; some of these same voices also doing their best to gum up the works. They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.

In this politically-charged national debate, we have President Obama and much of the left arguing for a greater role of government in the lives of people, and on the right the Tea Party and others are arguing for a smaller government. But, government is merely a framework for governing and not the actual science of government which determines its size and reach. We call the science of government politics.

Look in any modern dictionary and you will find the definition of politics given in a half-dozen or more explanations, many with unfavorable connotations. One pushes the dictionary aside with the thought that the soup contains the ingredients but not the flavor. To find the flavor, particularly to understand what the founding Americans thought of politics, we need to go back to Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language of 1828:

The science of government; that part of ethics which consists in the regulation and government of a nation or state, for the preservation of its safety, peace, and prosperity; comprehending the defense of its existence and rights against foreign control or conquest … and the protection of its citizens in their rights, with the preservation and improvement of their morals. (emphasis added)

We see that the early Americans believed that politics dealt with ethics (the moral code) and was to be concerned with the preservation and improvement of the morals of the citizenry. So politics is not the “heavy” as it is so often portrayed in modern times. Politics are necessary to govern a people, but that governance can range between being very good and very bad. And bad politics can result in a bloated, socialistic government or an austere, aloof, uncaring government. This distinction between government and politics is important and not just an exercise in academic hair-splitting.

With this understanding, two observations are necessary: government is ordained by God and man has a fallen nature. The problem is not bad government but bad politics caused by corruptible man who is not guided by the North Star of a biblical worldview resting on objective truth. Therefore, it is not government that is the issue as portrayed by President Obama. Rather, it is bad politics that is that separate, sinister entity that is the root of our problems. Bad politics is the tyranny that constantly lurks around the corner.

Once again, bad politics comes from ignoring the corruptible nature of man in the governance of a people. The Founders held a biblical worldview. They understood the truth of the fallen, corrupt nature of man, and designed the Constitution with separation of powers and other devices to control or mitigate that corrupt nature. But the modern liberals believe that man is inherently good, not fallen and in need of redemption.

The contrast between the beliefs of the Founders and those of President Obama and the humanist-liberal-progressive establishment could not be clearer. James Wilson, a signor of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and an original Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, said, “Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine… Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other.”

However, President Obama in a speech titled “Our Future and Vision for America”, said,

At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It’s the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God’s edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one’s life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing.

For President Obama, it appears that human law must exclude divine law in the nation’s policy making. President Obama also says that we should reject those voices who say that “…our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.” I would submit that self-rule without the restraints of God’s law is the truly dangerous thing which can’t be trusted. Ultimately, self-rule without God is the source of bad politics.

Although the state has a proper role in God’s design of social systems, bad politics have allowed the state to dramatically usurp the authority of other spheres within God’s social system: family, church, labor and economics, education, man, and God Himself. In America, God and Christianity are being driven from the public square. As the social order is swept clean of God’s presence and influence, the lines between the spheres have blurred and opened the way for the state to appropriate to itself a presumed authority over all aspects of life. Such state authority ends in the tyranny of socialism or one of its various mutations which have been responsible for the greatest death, destruction, and misery in the history of the world. This is the sinister tyranny that Americans fear and which President Obama so blithely dismisses.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Washington Wire, “Transcript: Obama speech at Ohio State University,” The Wall Street Journal, May 16, 2013. http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/05/06/transcript-obamas-commencement-speech-at-ohio-state/ (accessed May 16, 2013).

Noah Webster, “Politics,” American Dictionary of the English Language, Facsimile Edition, (San Francisco, California: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1995).

The Works of James Wilson, Bird Wilson, editor (Philadelphia: Bronson and Chauncey, 1804), Vol. I, pp. 104-106 as quoted from online source: http://www.partyof1776.net/p1776/fathers/WilsonJames/quotes.html (accessed May 16, 2013).

Illinois State Senator Barak Obama, “Our Future and Vision for America”, About.com US Liberal Politics, June 28, 2006. http://usliberals.about.com/od/faithinpubliclife/a/ObamaReligion_4.htm (accessed May 16, 2013).