Legislating
Cowardice
Charlie Earl
There are
laws from God and laws of men (sorry, ladies, no political correctness in these
columns). His laws define our relationships with Him and with others. Man’s
laws attempt to cover every imaginable real and unreal contingency faced by all
humans for all time. God’s laws endure even when we ignore them, defy them and
break them. Man’s laws are generally bothersome annoyances with little
relationship to reality….unless they reflect God’s laws. Illicit reproduction
of great art and plagiarism of great literature are crimes in the world of men
so…shouldn’t our feeble inadequate attempts to play god through the legislative
process because considered a crime as well? All we appear to be doing is
copying the original, trashing the original or “upgrading” a wholly adequate
original by adding glitter and meaningless nuance. In addition…the plethora of
man-made laws makes cowards out of many of us.
As I wander
(and wonder) through these weeds of the philosophical justification for
lawmaking, I must confess that the savage scenario from Newtown,
Connecticut-Sandy Hook school prompted this exploration. Twenty little tots and
6 teachers were brutally murdered in a gun-free
zone…..by a gun-toting loon. God’s law forbids murder, and we can all agree
that the shooter performed an evil, un-Godly act. Man’s law would not allow
guns on the property ergo the victims and their guardians were unequipped to
fight the evil that accosted them. The outcome of this heinous crime has
generated discussion, hysteria and new laws throughout the globe, but nothing
will change. Murder will always be evil under God’s law, and Man’s law cannot
prevent evil. Man’s law creates cowards who are fearful of standing tall and
defending God’s law because it may conflict with the state’s power to control
everything.
The Founders
and Framers of our nation understood the wisdom of God’s law. In fact…we nearly
failed to become a nation because some states wanted a declaration of personal
unalienable rights included before they would ratify The Constitution of the United States as the supreme and guiding
law of the land. Just as God’s Commandments are few and inviolable, the rules
for governance in our legal beacon are limited and limiting. Crazy preachers
aside, God’s law plus Christ’s grace are sufficient after many, many centuries
whereas in the little more than TWO-century history of our nation lawmaking,
law printing, law interpreting …. and law breaking have morphed into major
industries.
There is no
rational basis for the plethora of laws, rules and regulations that inundate us
today. If one law can be ignored or broken, why not ten or 10,000? The
micro-managing of our lives and behaviors has but two true purposes: to
intimidate us into cowardice OR to assure that we will become criminals for
breaking some arcane and senseless code. We lose. Controllers win. Tyranny
prevails as liberty withers. The complexity of the code assures that the bolder
members of a society will at some point violate the law. The law, therefore,
becomes a tool for extortion and behavior control…. Law is control wherein
certain behaviors are allowable and others are forbidden. The problem is that
as more and more behaviors are deemed unacceptable, the freedom of the citizens
is limited to the point where they become autonomists….or criminals.
A simple
code is more likely to enhance liberty. Our governing elites however view
“simple’ as simplistic. They believe those of us in “fly over country” are
naïve simpletons who are incapable of self-governance. We are too ignorant to
make good choices therefore they must limit our options and reduce our
opportunities. It seems logical, therefore, that laws exist to circumscribe
behavior and an over-abundance of laws exist solely to restrict freedom. The logical
extension of this scenario is that we the people are either intimidated into
docile behavior or targeted as criminal law breakers. Legislation and
rule-making creates cowards and criminals.
Our choice
as citizens is which of the two classes we shall join. The security of
passivity or the dangerous path of liberty. Freedom….first, foremost and
forever.
Charlie Earl
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