restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations
Liberty Is Ultimately an Ethical Issue, Not a Political One
What is a Constitution? It is the form of government, delineated by the mighty hand of the people, in which certain first principles of fundamental laws are established. The Constitution is certain and fixed; it contains the permanent will of the people, and is the supreme law of the land; it is paramount to the power of the Legislature, and can be revoked or altered only by the authority that made it. The life-giving principle and the death-doing stroke must proceed from the same hand. What are Legislatures? Creatures of the Constitution; they owe their existence to the Constitution: they derive their powers from the Constitution: It is their commission; and, therefore, all their acts must be conformable to it, or else they will be void. The Constitution is the work or will of the People themselves, in their original, sovereign, and unlimited capacity. Law is the work or will of the Legislature in their derivative and subordinate capacity. The one is the work of the Creator, and the other of the Creature. The Constitution fixes limits to the exercise of legislative authority, and prescribes the orbit within which it must move. In short, gentlemen, the Constitution is the sun of the political system, around which all Legislative, Executive and Judicial bodies must revolve. – Justice Patterson (1795)
We Americans arent very bright. So many of our discussions about the federal government are just simply idiotic. The real problem is that our Federal Constitution is a dead letter to most politicians, who pay as much attention to the foundational document of our government as you and I do to our junk email.
In case you havent noticed, liberals and neoconservatives are cut from the same cloth. Both ask, Whos going to control Big Brother? instead of asking (as they should), How can we get rid of Big Brother? The only real difference between liberals and conservatives is that they tend to devise different plans on what to do with the power of the federal government. Thats why Republicans have failed to prevent the growth of the federal budget in recent yearsthey arent even faintly interested in controlling the expansion of the federal government! Like most of us, it seems that neither liberal nor neoconservative politicians are willing to get to the heart of the issuethe question of the legitimate use of government power. As George Washington warned, Government is not reason, it is not eloquenceit is force. Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action. Thus our politicians produce their plans and programs without ever being challenged on the immoral and unethical means they use.
The story is told of a skyscraper that had just been built when it was discovered that there was crack on the 72nd story. They brought in the original engineers, who took the elevator to the third sub-basement where they found the problem. Ive often asked myself why we focus so much of our attention on the cracks when the real problem lies deep beneath the surface. Ive concluded that the problem of the size of government is not really a political problem at all but a spiritual, moral, ethical, and even biblical one. I believe its time to stop discussing the pros and cons of government programs to assist the poor, the aged, and the sick and come to terms with the fact that the power of the federal government is out of control!
This doesnt make me any less compassionate than my conservative friends. As I have frequently argued, Christians have a moral and Scriptural obligation to help the needy. But if history has taught us anything, it is that the solution to the problem of human need is not the intervention and compulsive agency of the state to improve the outward economic circumstances of the poor. There is nothing compassionate about compassionate conservatism when hard-working people are literally robbed of their incomes to help others! To advocate such an approach is to deny the clear teaching of Gods word because it abandons the gracious character of Christian charity.
Its so easy to forget that the foundational concept upon which our society was built was that government officials are under an obligation to be guided by the principles of divine law. And it was the distinct purpose of the Federal Constitution to limit, not the power of We the People, but the power of government. The Founders argued that unless the federal government was bound by the chains of the Constitution, it would inevitably develop into a monstrous Leviathan through uncontrolled growth. Tragically, that is exactly what has happened.
When the state oversteps its authority, there are two things we can and must do. The first is to swallow our pride and acknowledge that as a society we have unwisely permitted our elected officials to base their policies on humanly devised guidelines instead of on biblical ones. The second is to call for a return to the law of God as the supreme and sole standard for determining the legitimate function of government. This means (among other things) that Christian ethicists, many of whom are political conservatives and evangelical Christians, must acknowledge that they have promoted ethically commendable goals by unethical means in calling upon the state to exercise its power of compulsion where there is no biblical warrant for it.
In the end, our problems in America are much deeper than we think. In the name of ethics, we have unethically disregarded the proper separation of church and state by transferring to the state the obligations that God has laid upon His church. Sadly, we seem content to debate the cracks on the 72nd story and ignore the real problem in the third sub-basement.
June 15, 2003
David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.