I just read an outstanding article by Alan Keyes at renewamerica.us.
Contemporary politicians lack the knowledge and ability to conceive of, much less understand and defend, the social institutions characteristic of liberty. They talk about the marriage issue as if it is just a matter of sexual or religious preferences. They typically treat the concern for liberty as if it is merely a rhetorical device, with no relevance to practical politics and decision making. It seems never to have occurred to them that the real issue for statesmanship has to do with the relationship between marriage and liberty.
Picture and Quote taken from http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/keyes/070826
I haven’t been a follower of Alan Keyes so I don’t know much about him, but I loved this article. It is actually a part of a series of very thought provoking articles that he has written at renewamerica.us.
It is so rare that I find something that actually challenges me to think!
(article continues below)
I would challenge you to look for some of the following ideas in his article:
- There are a number of institutions in society, and it takes all of them to maintain freedom for a people.
- Marriage is an essential institution for the preservation of liberty, it is not just a matter of “sexual or religious preference.”
- The seventeenth amendment to the Constitution effectively removed the representation that state governments had in the U.S. federal government!
- The establishment of the Federal Reserve (which regulate our currency, the U.S. dollar), and the sixteenth amendment (legalizing income tax) put the control of our national income in the hands of a “centralized elite.”
- The “New Deal” (Franklin Roosevelt and gang, during and after the Great Depression) helped change America from the “land of the free” to “land of workers with a government-guaranteed income.”
There is much here that I am not an expert on, but I would like to discuss several principles of freedom that I have observed.
Following up on point 1 above: It is essential for a free people to have a number of institutions that are free from government control in order to keep them safe from tyranny. We seem to currently be living under the assumption, for example, that the government is responsible to educate our children. However, this comes with some inherent risk. If people are vying for power in a government, and the government controls education, and education so strongly influences the future ideas that the educated will have, then there is great incentive for the struggle for power to also try to control education. The government tries to control education towards its own ends.
However, if individuals (the most basic “institution” of freedom) organize into families (the foundational institution of society), and those familes “control” education, then those families have the greatest influence on the common thinking of the future!
So here is the question. Do you want the government controlling education, and thus having the greatest influence on future thought, and thus securing its own ideologies in the future? (The government influences the people) -or-
Do you want individuals and families controlling education, and thus having the greatest influence on future thought, and thus securing the families own well-being in the future? (The people influence the government!)
Principle#1: It is absolutely essential that individuals and families have authority and supervision over the education of their children in order to preserve individual and corporate freedom for posterity.
Principle#2: If the institution of family is messed with or defined or controlled by the government, one of the most essential checks on government power is at risk!
Well. There is a start. Alan’s article was rich with content! I must go to bed now, but join me in my quest to understand principles of Freedom!
Goodnight for now!
ThirstyJon