What Is Good Government?
What does good government look like? Most of us probably associate good government with virtues and a virtuous person (see the links in the caption of the picture above). Unfortunately, we often forget that good government mostly depends upon the We the People behaving virtuously, not just our leaders.
Consider the Apostle Paul’s problem when he wrote Romans 13:1-7. The Roman Empire had crucified Jesus Christ. That same government would eventually martyr millions of Christ’s followers. Yet Paul counselled obedience to that same government. Why? The Peoples of the Roman Empire were intolerant of Christ and His followers, not just their government. Paul could not change the government without changing the People. Given the nature of the People, the People of the Roman Empire had the best government they could have.
The Roman Empire consisted of a hodgepodge of different peoples under tribute to Rome. Relatively few were enthusiastically loyal to Rome. So the Roman Empire ruled by force, and government force can be effective. When the People don’t want to obey the government voluntarily, because they don’t see the government as representative of their interests and their beliefs, then government force must of necessity be great and costly. Government must enslave the People, and slavery is grossly ineffective and inefficient, to say the least. Except for the elites who enjoy whatever luxuries may still be available, everyone else becomes a miserable captive confined to poverty. Then even the elites must watch their backs.
Is God On Your Side, or Are You On God’s Side?
Wasn’t God on the Apostle Paul’s side? With the Almighty to support him, why didn’t Paul take up arms against the Roman Empire? Why did Paul counsel such extreme patience and perseverance? Was it because God considers saving the souls of the People more important than overthrowing a tyrannical government, more important than “good government”? Apparently.
So Paul exercised self-restraint. Instead of violence he practiced civil disobedience long before we had a word for it. He obeyed God, and he upset the Roman authorities and outraged the Jews by vigorously spreading the Gospel. Still, as much as he could and still obey God, Paul submitted to the power of the Roman Empire.
Being on God’s side requires humility. What does humility involve? I have two quotes I think are important. Rick Warren first.
Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less. (from here)
Instead of trusting in our self, we trust God.
Proverbs 3:5-6 New King James Version (NKJV)
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
We are God’s servants. To serve God requires us to think of God first. Since Paul was wise, he strove to save the souls of the People of the Roman Empire.
What Is Broken Today?
In the name of love the busybodies who lead us seek to impose their supposedly wonderful, selfless, socially just, secular moral beliefs on us. Why? It gives them excuses to do two things.
- Spend our money. As Romans 13:1-7 indicates, we need government to provide for national security, maintain order and punish lawbreakers. However, most of the money our government now spend involves health, education, and welfare programs. It sounds like a great idea provide “rights” to healthcare, education, food, shelter, clothing, transportation, a job, retirement, vacation, and so forth. It sounds great to help the poor and the needy by taking money from the “rich” and giving it to the “poor”, but politicians cannot be trusted with that kind of power and money. We cannot control how they will abuse the power or spend money. So they will become more and more corrupt, peddling influence, buying our votes, corrupting everything and everyone.
- Increase their power over us. When some people try to force their moral beliefs on other people, there is always resistance. If our politicians can convince enough of us that imposition of their supposedly wonderful, selfless, socially just, secular moral beliefs is justifiable, then we will give them immense power. Do you want force others to approve of the Theory of Evolution; Climate Change theories; situational ethics; racial, sexual, and creedal favoritism; abortion; same-sex marriage;… Busybodies revel in making other people do things, but do you want to be constantly busybodied.
Busybodies will say anything to justify sky-high spending and their need for the power. They will claim history or even God is on their side. They will say “we” have a responsibility to do this or that supposedly wonderful, selfless, socially just, secular thing.
Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right. — Abraham Lincoln (from here)
Lincoln made an important distinction. It is the difference between pride and humility. The prideful insist God is on their side. The humble pray they have chosen correctly.
“We” don’t have a responsibility, not if we have freedom of religion. We each have a choice to obey God, to be on “God’s side” or not as best we can. I have my way of trying to be on God’s side. You have yours. In a society that permits freedom of religion, we each have the right to try to be on God’s side or not — to pursue happiness — as we see fit. Problems arise when a large faction starts employing the government to force everyone to be on “God’s side,” or else. Then we will eventually find ourselves at each others throats.
How Do We Improve Our Government?
What kind of government is better if it can be made to work? Abraham Lincoln called it government by the People, of the People, and for the People. Because government by the People, of the People, and for the People by definition implements the shared will of the People, the People must share a similar vision of what good government looks like. We don’t, not anymore. Therefore, we are increasingly at each other’s throats.
The Founders of our nation were not apostles. They had a job to create a good government. Still, they were students of the Bible. So they focused on fashioning a government that would inhibit our tendencies to violate each others rights. To accomplish their ends, they did an odd thing. They created a managerial monstrosity designed to prevent any one person from accumulating great power to himself. Three – four independent levels of government. Checks and balances. An electoral college. And so forth. Deliberately inefficient!
What did the Founders scheme depend upon? A people moral enough that they actively sought to obey the law. Anywhere else in the world they would have been nuts to try such a thing, and they knew it.
Where did the American People’s morality come from? Government? Nobody has ever succeeded in using government force to make a moral people, people who will strive to do the right thing even when no one is looking. Jesus, however, has persuaded untold numbers to love Him and obey His command to love their neighbors. Hence, the Founders of our nation benefitted from a work begun centuries ago.
Yet we are now a divided People, at each others throats. Isn’t government force the solution now? We will use it, to some extent to a good purpose, but government force won’t solve the basic problem. Because we have let Busybodies educate us, We the People have become relatively more corrupt. We have turned from Him. Therefore, so long as God gives us the time to do so, we need to imitate the Apostle Paul. We need to study and spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Where do we begin? We begin at home. Do you have children or grandchildren? Then ask yourself a question. Do you want your children to learn your values or someone else’s values? What would someone else’s values be? Who knows? We can only assume that some politician will think it suitable to his purposes, not necessarily yours, or to the benefit of your children.
Citizen Tom 
Tom,
How can any government be good if as you say, ” we are st each others throats?”.
Which side’ has righteous anger when an issue is political. We know Jesus displayed righteous religious 9anger when he turned over the money changers in his Father’s house, the Temple.
We dont seem to know what good, righteous government crosesl a red line. THE Bible states sin, but what defines goverment as being righteous or good.?
Regards and goodwill blogging
@Scatterwisdom
We are not Jews under the Old Covenant. So we cannot use the Bible to justify some sort of theocracy. Still, what we owe to God we cannot render unto Caesar.
I think the best example crossing that red line is the public education system. Christians should not allow the state to educate their children. I realize the poor have few alternatives, but parents have too little opportunity to exercise any control over what is taught. In many cases government-run schools deliberately interfere with the inculcation of Christian teachings. If nothing else, by excluding the religious beliefs of the parents — secularizing educational content — the state instills Atheism by rendering God rendering God too unimportant to be worthy of mentioning.
Yet there can also be overt hostility towards religious belief. When I was growing up, for example, we were taught religion starts wars. The focus was the wars that followed on the heels of the Protestant Reformation. Many of those wars did in fact have something to do with religion, but like Henry the VIII most of the nobles just wanted the Pope gone.
Our teachers also glossed over the fact that Atheistic philosophies like Nazism and Communism are perfectly capable of fomenting bloody violence.
Does religion start wars? Depends upon what we believe. If we don’t love our neighbor as we love our self, we have taken the first step towards killing him.
Tom,
I agree we are not under the Old Covenant. However, the red line problems between religion and politics still exist today.
I agree with your opinions about schools. I wrote a post today about another issue in the current news issues of illegal immigration.
The root cause for both problems in my opinion is basically the same in our contemporary times except a different types of governing and leadership.
As for schools, I wrote a similar post why we voters are fools ..
If Interested, I believe both posts are related to your post subject of what good government is supposed to be, if only we voters were not fools.
Our founders wrote a Constitution to guide us with wisdom which apparently is not in the realm of fools.
https://rudymartinka.com/2019/07/16/king-solomon-red-line-differences-between-righteous-religious-or-political-anger/
https://rudymartinka.com/2019/07/16/king-solomon-red-line-differences-between-righteous-religious-or-political-anger/
Regards and good will blogging
Excellent post as always, Tom! 🙂
Tom,
If you don’t like this country and it’s government, why don’t you do what Trump said, and go back to the country that you came from? 😏
But of course, the Misogynist-in-Chief, your party leader in open racial warfare, wasn’t actually referring to strangely disaffected white Christian men of privilege, now was he? No, just women who happen to be any shade darker than whatever shade of pink-orange that Trump happens to be on any given day.
Fun facts:
1. Trump and convicted pedophile Epstein used to pal around together, and at one point Trump invited a bevy of young female contestants to a “meet and greet the big wigs” party at Trump’s resort. When the eager beauty queens showed up, it turned out that Trump and Epstein were the only other guests and the young women were actually on the entertainment menu exclusively for them.
2. Just last week, one of Trump’s for-profit second White Houses planed a “charity” golf event where local all nude strippers were to be auctioned off as caddies, including package deals for private shows at the strip club. This Presidential model of Christian charity was only called off last week after news hit the press and the charity pulled out.
3. During the campaign Trump illegally paid hush money to a porn star, and reimbursed a tabloid to kill the story of a porn model just to hide from voters his illicit affairs with these women. This would be the third wife that Trump cheated on. No, of course there is no reason to worry about Russian influence when Trump can be blackmailed by a porn star and then repeatedly lie to the public about it.
4. Just a couple weeks ago another woman (what is it – 20 some women now?) credibly accused Trump of another rape. Trump essentially responded that she wasn’t pretty enough to meet his “grab em by the p*$&¥“ criteria.
5. The former owner of a massage parlor exposed as a prostitution ring that the Kraft family patriarch was caught up in is now being investigated for selling the Chinese influence with Trump by saying that they would get to meet the president at Trump’s Mar-a-lago Resort and tax dollar promoted Florida White House.
And all of these examples are just a few of the endless undisputed misogynist corruption instances about your predator President. His numerous pandering of racist tropes and statements are at the core of his MAGA campaign messagING starting with Birtherism. And this is the leader of Evangelicals who say they believe in Jesus’ Good Samaritan message of helping and welcoming the stranger?
Can you really claim that your Republican views are inspired by the Bible and a concern for teaching of Christian morality to children when this is leader of your movement? This is the moral example of your leadership that you honestly want for your grandkids to emulate? Your knowledge of the reality of the modern democratic state is stuck in the 18th Century, but even if it had any intellectual merit, your movement’s choice of this blatantly corrupt and incompetent leadership-by-racist/misogynist-tweets damns it of any moral credibility.
@tsalmon
I suppose voting for voting for people who promise to fundamentally transform the country is indicative of how much you love it? Logic is not your strong point. When I promote freedom of religion, you make it sound like I am trying to foist my religious beliefs on you. Meanwhile, the list of crazy things Democrats insist we all believe just continues to grow.
You don’t like Trump? Well, that is what CNN told you think. 😕 Still, when you complain so vociferously about Trump why can’t you figure out you are making the case for limited government?
Are you right about Trump? Yes and no. I never claimed he was perfect. Politicians tend to be selfcentered, not virtuous.
Nevertheless, the news media is usually full of nonsense. If no one else does it first, I suppose I will have poke holes in few of your examples. Meanwhile, I have some lawn work.
Logic is not MY strong suit? I’m essentially an institutionalist. I believe in our traditional constitutional institutions, but also that those institutions need constant reform and updating to drastic changes in the economy, technology and social customs. You’re the one who is trying to completely get rid of our institutions, some of which are over a hundred years old. By 20th Century standards you’re not even a conservative. You’re the illogic of s social totalitarian disguised as governmental libertarian.
But whatever irrational radical scheme you propose, you’re still avoiding the real issue. As long as Trump is the leader of whatever you call this contradictory movement, it simply has no moral credibility. You can’t claim that your movement has any moral foundation while you support a leader who normalizes every sort of moral corruption imaginable from misogyny to hedonism to overt race baiting.
The loving message of Christ is His merciful and sacrificial offering to us a voluntary redemption through our active atonement, not that we should just bask in sinfulness and corruption. Christians humbly accept our sinful nature before we cast stones, but we don’t promote and normalize obvious hedonistic corruption. Why should anyone listen to your governmental schemes when they are founded on the worst sort of moral rationalizing that Jesus often denigrated as pure hypocrisy?
@tsalmon
What you think is the loving message of Christ is your excuse for imposing your morality via Socialist institutions? Yet I am a religious bigot if I read the Bible and point out you are not suppose to do that?
You voted for Obama twice, and you voted for Hillary. And you don’t like Trump? What a surprise!
Logic is not your strong suit. You may write well, but we all need to consider where our ideas come from and where they are taking us.
Yes. I know, the usual straw men and my supposed propping up of our horrible centuries’ old institutions of the dystopia that has somehow made you so miserable that you are willing to sacrifice all the highest moral ideals of the Bible that you claim to have read by following a leader that is not only morally bankrupt, but promotes his vices as your virtues. No answer for that apparent pharisaic hypocrisy? Just imagined grievances against the institutions that made gave us more opportunities than most average men throughout previous history could have ever imagined?
Can’t you admit how even the puritans would have had no moral purchase if they chose Caligula as their leader? You claim to lecture on good government and yet you crown corruption as your king? Ya, that makes logical sense.🙃
@tsalmon
You don’t like Trump, and repeating lies about him is your idea of political discourse? Since most of the lies just involve twisting Trump’s words and quotes out of context, you don’t have much excuse. Since you worked as a reporter and passed the bar exam, you have the smarts to know better. Yet here you are accusing me of hypocrisy because I voted for Trump. I was suppose to for your candidate, H. Clinton, the choice of a blatantly, insanely partisan news media. No thank you!
Since I don’t have a tv and never watch election night returns anyway, I missed the news media’s reaction when Trump won. Hear it was hilarious. When I get too old to get about town, I look forward to watching the videos.
It is fortunate for us God has a sense of humour. I bet He found that evening amusing too.
Everything I wrote about Trump is a verifiable fact. You normally can’t defame someone with the truth, whether you are a lawyer or a reporter. But even if only a fraction of it were true, you wouldn’t tolerate it in a Democrat, now would you? You just choose to close your eyes and ears to Trump’s 10,000 lies, his greed, his misogyny and his racism because you don’t want to know what is so obvious that the press doesn’t even have to ferret out Trump’s corruption – they are overwhelmed with the evidence of it. It’s hard to keep up.
@tsalmon
You just choose to close your eyes and ears to the news media’s 10,000 lies, their greed, their misogyny and their racism because you don’t want to know what is so obvious. The press is not going to ferret out their own corruption – yet we are overwhelmed with the evidence of it. So why don’t you see it. Even to see the obvious we have to open our eyes.
10,000 lies?
Don’t you mean a million, bazillion?
That’s just as accurate.
Trump is not Jesus; but he’s doing a good job at being President.
@liz
Agreed! Trump is definitely doing a good job, and the job he doing isn’t what tsalmon complains about.
He’s doing a good job ruining things. But hey.. that’s just me (and maybe Tony).
Liz,
If I disagree, do you think the POTUS should tell me to go back to where I came from? But he wouldn’t target me would he? Irish Catholics are considered white now so he wouldn’t ever say that to people like me.
Trump’s doing a good job? In what other reality?
1. Foreign Policy? Like me, your husband knows what it’s like to plan a military strike and prepare for every contingency in a bathtub like the Persian Gulf (there’s a reason it’s called the “Persian” Gulf). Trump tells the military to go and then calls it off at the last minute. Then Trump blames the military for not briefing him on casualties. Sure they didn’t ….. That’s what you consider a good job? Trump’s N. Korea love affair with a despot is basically a surrender to and legitimation of Kim. If Obama had done the same you’d be howling. I won’t even get into how Trump has alienated all our closest allies, but don’t worry, the tyrants love him.
2. The budget? We are aiming at well over a one trillion dollar deficit this year. Turns out the robust economy that Obama left Trump won’t actually pay for his tax cuts to the rich. But I guess Republicans only care about deficit spending when Democratic Presidents are actually decreasing it.
3. Repeal and Replace Obamacare? Laughable.
4. Immigration? Trump telegraphs a “big ICE raid” thus endangering officers and making their job much more difficult. But Trump really is doing a great job making families suffer, especially children. Bravo?
5. Trade Policy? Democrats are applauding Trump’s trade wars. That should tell you something all by itself.
I could go on and on with his “acting” Executive to his corruption fest revolving door at the White House. Trump is doing a good only if you consider making the government into a scandal ridden dumpster fire of incompetence.
However, even if Trump were doing a good job, are you really willing to accept his open racism, misogyny and corruption to get it? Isn’t this giving in to old fantasy that “at least they made the trains run on time” except they didn’t, did they?
@tsalmon
This comes a political party that calls everyone who disagrees racists. You racists (and that is what overusing that epithet is), now have those ugly women as the face of your party. That is what Trump wanted. Think about why. It is not about their race, and you know It.
@tsalmon
I am kind of shocked. After your endless accusations, you actually want to debate substance. Getting desperate?
1. Let’s see. How has our foreign policy improved. ISIS is gone. The Arab Spring is over. The other nations in NATO are paying up. We are confronting unfair trade practices. We aren’t apologizing to everyone. We have told Iran and NK “No Nukes”, and we are squeezing their economies (China is hurting too, BTW.). Anyway, that’s a start.
2. Congress controls the budget, not Trump. Trump has said America will never be Socialist, but we are already to a large extent there. Until we renounce Socialism, we will not be able to balance the budget.
3. John McCain voted against ending Obamacare. Blame the news media’s favorite go to Republican now six feet under. So a Republican Congress defanged Obamacare by repealing the individual mandate.
4. What is going on with the ICE raids. My guess is there is a money problem. Where do they put the people they catch until the can ship them out? Given Congress is not helping, I think they are working out a strategy to get these people to self-deport. Congress is really where the power in our government is located. Therefore, when both Democrats and many Republicans in Congress are fighting Trump on this (plus a viciously hostile news media), he is fighting a difficult battle. So your complaints about his competence are just spiteful and malicious. It is like deriding a man who is having trouble standing up while you beat him with a club.
5. Trump has a replacement for NAFTA. The Democrats now have to pass the bill. What they do with that bill should tell you something all by itself.
You had to end with the accusations. Sad. Well, you are a racist, a woman hater, a bigot and so forth. Just open a dictionary and apply all the four-letter words to yourself. Then I win. Well, really I don’t. The name-calling is meaningless. You have cried wolf too many times. Nobody gains when you do that.
When someone uses blatantly racist tropes to incite the worst prejudices of his base, he is a racist. When s political party applauds that racist strategy, it becomes a racist party. Full stop.
1. You want to debate the incompetence of your corrupt president, but I notice that you did not rebut the issues that I brought up.
2. Trump had both houses of Congress for two years. In your house, do decrease your income BEFORE tackling your expenses? What nonsense!
3. How convenient? A dead war hero is the reason why the Republican Party couldn’t blow up a popular health care system and replace it with what? John McCain did your incompetent party a favor. So what if the courts actually kill Obamacare? Republicans have pledged to immediately. guarantee that the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT will continue to regulate health insurance by keeping its most popular provisions but without a competitive wholistic system to pay for them. They concede your screams of socialism are just empty demagoguery.
4. Again you don’t explain Trump’s stupidity. 12 million people are going to “self deport”, in some cases back to Hell, because Trump tipped them off that ICE is coming for them? The reason you can’t explain it is because it is not only racist and xenophobia cruelty, it’s incompetent racist xenophobia cruelty.
5. You mean the same trade deal that was formally know as NAFTA? What big things did Trump get specifically that made America Great Again, and that was worth all the fuss? Trump is a wrecking ball – he doesn’t build things – he has no idea how to – he just stamps his name on things someone that Democrats built and declares victory.
Regardless, even if Trump were actually the competent “highly stable genius” that he keeps asserting that he is (BTW, who does that?!?), he is still morally corrupt to the core, and everything around him is corrupted by him, including the Republican Party. You can’t make a Faustian bargain and expect God to bless it or anything actually good to come from it in the end.
@tsalmon
Agreed!
1. I want to debate the incompetence of corrupt president? When you start like that, it is a cinch you are not making sense.
2. Trump is an outsider. He has yet to gain control of the Republican Party. Moreover, he has been fighting the Establishment (people like John McCain) largely by himself.
3. Make up your mind.
4. You are blaming Trump for a problem that people like you created, a problem that has been around throughout recorded history. Some people want cheap labor. They will use any excuse. Democrats wouldn’t let go of slavery. Remember.
5. Trump’s deal will be debated. I suggest you read a variety of news sources.
4.
You seem to live in a dark place, Tom. You’re sounding like we are at the age of some Sodom & Gomorrah; consuming ourselves with a misguided idea of freedom while denying to include Christian ideals; ignoring the Biblical prophets and teachings of the Almighty and His Son. You assign grandiose blame for the nation’s ills on corrupt politicians in search of more power and control, too much government in control of our daily living, especially in education, in order for those in power to control us and become even more powerful. Yet at the same time you raise the Founding Fathers’ construct of the Constitution as a near Biblical event, and we have used that in a bastardized way to create false idols to our greed for capitalism. I realize you’d prefer America being a Christian theocracy.
I was raised a Christian to apply its principles to my daily life… not to pass judgement on the world.. and the political world, around me. As long as humans continue to exist humans will always be morally conflicted and at odds with our instincts… yet at the same time carry with our species a hope for the future. Pray if you must, but i prefer to apply Christian ideals on a personal level and not through constantly asking for forgiveness simply because I AM human. But that’s just me. I don’t see the doom & gloom as you so often do.
Since you’ve brought up the mix of religion into politics… again I present the hypocrisy of your favoring the most morally bankrupt leader of this country in its history in exchange for “but look at all the good he’s done.” The proverbial deal with the devil.
@Doug
I think you have attacking me confused with making a counterargument. Just because someone has an opinion that differs from yours does not mean they live in a dark place (with their head up their rear).
The focus of this post isn’t Sodom & Gomorrah. The focus is freedom of religion, assuming that when people are responsible for their own decisions and must accept the consequences of their decisions we will get better decisions. That is Freedom 101. Only someone who is afraid of people making their own decisions thinks government is solution for every problem.
We each should be in charge of choosing who teaches our children and what children our children are taught, not politicians. Politicians just eliminate competition and any real choice. Politicians don’t make better choices.
We each should be in charge of buying our own healthcare, not politicians. Politicians just eliminate competition and any real choice. Politicians don’t make better choices.
And so forth……..
Whenever possible we each should be in charge of spending our own money and making our own choices. Politicians just eliminate competition and any real choice. Unless restrained, some people will enslave other people. That is History 101, and we still have the same basic human nature.
If you don’t think the founding of this nation was a near Biblical event, you don’t know our history. We only know of two republics before the United States. Half of the population of both these cities states, Athens and Rome, was enslaved. Thanks in large part to the Declaration of Independence, latter generations fought a civil war, fought over slavery. They eliminated slavery from the United States. If you know anything about history, you have to see that is wildly amazing.
Who are you kidding? That’s the most inane posturing! LOL!
Look at the comment you just wrote. You write more than one blog. You don’t say anything?
I did not tell you how to practice Christianity. I did not pass judgement on anyone’s soul. I appealed to Christians to consider what the Bible says, what the Apostle Paul did, and what the Founders accomplished. I suggested it is totally inappropriate, unchristian, to use the government to force our beliefs upon each other. I suggested an alternative that has worked.
You are trying to use the Bible to justify more government by shutting up Christians who would use their ideals to inform their politics. You get to use your secular ideals, but we cannot use our Christian ideals. Why you cannot see the irony of that escapes me. If you are not in the dark, then where are you?
You don’t like President Donald Trump? Who knew? Turn off CNN.
Actually, Tom.. the “dark place” I was referring to was not casting aspersions on any level of ignorance, political or otherwise, but rather a human concern that you tend to dwell on the doom & gloom of the nation, and many times life in general. In other words… I allowed some,, oh dare I even suggest this… Christian/human compassion in making such an observation. Be that as it may…
You said… “You are trying to use the Bible to justify more government by shutting up Christians who would use their ideals to inform their politics.”
Actually, I don’t know enough about the Bible to use it for much of anything except inspiration for meeting daily challenges and personal behavior… which to me seems to be the whole point. If the people ARE the government.. in a democracy, republic, whatever, then it might suggest you want everyone to govern according to the Bible. But your “enemy” seems to be fellow humans who have been put into power by us to govern…. but they don’t govern the way you want to be governed. So it’s easier to make “them” have sinister agendas and make it look as if this is some quasi-holy struggle.
Feel free to watch FOX.. I am sure they will inspire you to keep jousting at those windmills.
@Doug
I didn’t say you know anything, but it does mention Sodom & Gomorrah.
If you want a serious discussion, then consider the possibility of disputing the points I made. To make our government work well, we have to understand what government is for, how we are suppose to control it, and the pitfalls of letting it get out of our control. Endlessly complaining about Trump does not get us anywhere.
But Tom, when you lament about government and powerful leaders run amok, and some inappropriate desire on their part to worship high profits and the almighty dollar.. I’m sorry, but you have a perfect example of it occupying the White House. Unfortunately this clown brings with him all things wrong with someone we might want to have some power over us. Kinda hard to ignore what’s in our face each and every day when you are trying to criticize the concept of government… and leaving out a major cause of the current divisive discourse feeding that debate. Heck… you wanna “fix” government using religion, more power to you. One argument at a time for me. The country’s in a damn awful mess… and at least 40% of Americans think this is ok and Trump himself is a God-send to humanity. It has nothing to do one bit with the man being “a little less than perfect”.. with the usual “but look at all the good he’s done.”
Ah.. well… the political blogs in general are quieting down because things are coming to a head. I feel little need to post a thing. The application of logic to presume a President left in 2016. It’s pure emotion now.
@Doug
And you complain about my doom and gloom!
We have a republic. We are imperfect. We have nothing but imperfect people to run our republic. So you have a choice. In a republic, we can minimize what the government does, and we can make who is in charge less important. Read the the Federalist Papers and Constitution. That is how it was suppose to work.
Alternatively, we can give up our republic and lose our right to vote. Then our leaders will insist we will shout with joy over who is in charge. The great “benefit” of this later option is that you won’t be able to gripe anymore. Frankly, I would rather listen to your gripes.