Thursday, August 11, 2011

The Revolution to Come

A former colleague of mine emailed me this article with the comment: "I'm not sure what to say about this." But I did. So I wrote him back...

There are three categories of people:
  1. Those who believe the government can provide all their needs,
  2. Those who've previously placed their faith in government (but have come to realize that their man-made god is untrustworthy), and
  3. Those who've always believed that government tends to attract ambitious, power-hungry scoundrels who abuse power to promote their utopian agendas. (Those in category 3 also tend to understand that most dangerous of these scoundrels are those who seek the "greater good", since their conscience is unbothered by the evil they do in their quest to "help the downtrodden".)

All those in category 1 are clueless, but will eventually end up in category 2.

Those in category 2 will join the French Revolution (a disorganized mob that riots in hopes of tearing down their disappointing idol and erecting a new more worthy god). If this revolution is successful, it will destroy society.

Those in category 3 will join the American Revolution (an organized citizenry that defies a government that presumes to have divine power). If this revolution is successful, it will restore the government to its proper limited role.

So the question isn't whether America is pre-revolutionary or not, but whether those who presently oppose our god-like government want a new god or a law-abiding government.