Liberty

Societies exist under three forms sufficiently distinguishable. 1. Without government, as among our Indians. 2. Under governments wherein the will of every one has a just influence, as is the case in England in a slight degree, and in our states in a great one. 3. Under governments of force: as is the case in all other monarchies and in most of the other republics. ... It is a problem, not clear in my mind, that the 1st. condition is not the best. But I believe it to be inconsistent with any great degree of population.

- Thomas Jefferson

He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants…He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves…and in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves...

- I Samuel, Ch 8.

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There is a singular challenge that we face as human beings, living, working, and being together. A challenge that, as Mr. Jefferson points out, starts as soon as there is any degree of population. Or probably to be more accurate, any degree of sufficiently dense population.

The challenge is that we want to (rightly) optimize for freedom – the latitude of control over their own existence that a given individual has. This optimization needs to be balanced against the potential for this given individual to encroach on the freedom of any other individual. It’s not immediately apparent for a small number of people in close contact, but tends to become more and more obvious the greater the number and proximity of individuals are within a population.

In the time of Samuel, prior to choosing its King, Israel began asking for a government “like everybody else has”. They wanted to have a consolidated point of control – a single individual actually - since that was the hip thing to do at the time. In my view, this really shows the immediate pressure they felt to have a government that they could readily see and put their faith in. God’s design for them was a minimal human government – with him as the ultimate authority. This lines up with Jefferson’s idea of a perfect situation, but carried with it the caveat that it required a degree of faith that Israel was ceasing to measure up to.

That’s not to say that God is making the same offer to us today. But he was to Israel at that time. And in a way Israel was and could have “cheated” a bit – having very sparse government (and thus high degree of individual freedom) due to the fact that the one who had his eye on the ball was actually omniscient.

Looking back at that quote from Samuel – we see that a King will “take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves…” Undoubtedly, autocratic rulers for a very long time have been enriching themselves at the expense of the people they are charged to rule. Jefferson and the other founding fathers understood this paradox – that in order to provide freedom and latitude for a dense group of people, it is necessary to consolidate power to a certain extent. But at the same time, consolidating power almost inevitably creates corruption in the individuals that hold it (in the case of human beings anyway). That is – the Freedom and Safety that we want usually come at a price in terms of both Freedom and Safety.

The wisdom and genius of our founders was in creating, under some serious pressure I might add, a system that was controlled enough to distribute authority as widely as possible while at the same time consolidating it enough to keep things from flying apart.

The thing for us to remember in our time – is that this isn’t a static system. We are ruled by ourselves and the more we forget that or rely on others to rule us, the more consolidated power becomes. The more consolidated power becomes – the more corrupt we are. The more corrupt we are, the worse our lives get, but more importantly, the further from God we become.

The responsibility of participating in our government isn’t just a platitude that our grade-school teachers talk about to help us honor the long-dead geniuses that built the foundations. It’s a moral imperative that we all must square ourselves with.

To ignore the state of our own freedom is to create the corruption that would destroy us.

Virtue

“Virtue…I find you at last but a shade” - Euripides

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We’re caught in a trap that we’ve inherited from our forefathers.  It’s an unquenchable hunger - a desire so deep, so intimately woven into the fabric of our souls that we have no hope of ignoring it.  No hope of medicating it.  No possibility of deceiving ourselves that we’re of the caliber of person to meet it, or that it doesn’t exist.  We are without hope, damned to starve in this barren wasteland of our own moral creation.

What are we to do?

Are we to strive to cover up our own perception - with drink or sex or stronger things?  It won’t work - we can’t outrun our own conscience - even our biology will adapt to the sensory distraction - such that we will need ever increasing doses to provide the same limited relief.

Are we to strive to live up to our understanding of virtue - using every last bit of our strength - denying ourselves anything that could possibly distract us from our singular goal?  No matter how focused we are and how valiantly we strive - we will fail.  Every violation of virtue will remind us of our utter inadequacy.

Every appetite that we suffer is meant to be combined with our reason - to lead us toward the future that we were meant for.  When we are hungry - it drives us toward the food we need to survive - though combining that with our reason we can also  choose to not eat things we’ve learned to be poison - or we can ration food for the future if we find more than our immediate hunger seeks. 

The obvious conclusion here, that shouldn’t escape our intellectual capacities, is that this particular appetite should drive us toward virtue but further than that, it should drive us toward the only One with whom we can meet our inbuilt desire.

Your Friend,
Kyle

The Lighthouse

“When in the course of human events…”

Freedom.  Freedom is something we all passionately pursue from the time that we are young.  As children and teenagers we push boundaries with the adults in our lives.  As adults we do what we can to have as broad control over the details of our lives that we can - by getting an education, by climbing a corporate ladder, by going into business for ourselves - or by numerous other means.  

To risk stating the blindingly obvious - we were made for freedom.  We have a natural hunger to have the most broad influence on the world around us that we can manage to muster.  Thirty seconds of introspection will bear this out to anyone able to read this.

Strictly speaking though, we simply *are* free - we can choose to think, and thus act in anyway we like.  Our fellow humans can limit or enhance the impact that we have on the world around us, but they can’t affect our underlying freedom.  So while we treat Freedom as a quest a lot of the time - in reality, it’s pretty much just a fact. 

Of course - when basic things like food, water or openly worshiping God without negative consequences are withheld by others, having freedom in these externals can rightly become a quest.  Though even when externally oppressed, our ability to think and act as we see fit are ultimately unaffected.

A seeming contradiction to the fact that we were made for freedom - is that we were also made to think and to do only a limited subset of all things that we might … namely, the best things - the most loving, good, and praise-worthy things.

Again - for any human who’s conscience hasn’t been dulled in the extreme, a little introspection will bear out the fact that there exist things that we fundamentally know that we shouldn’t do - killing our neighbor, cheating on our spouse, or robbing a bank to name some more obvious examples.

So what’s the problem then?  We have a built-in understanding about the best things to do - and we have the freedom to do them.  Seems like we’re all set. 

The problem, of course, is that mixed in among these two attributes - is an extremely self-centered tendency to follow our appetites at the expense of our understanding about the best thing to do.  

So how do we get on track - and live the life that was intended for us.   We need a lighthouse - a way to see the right through the fog of our own passions.  Ultimate Freedom - Freedom from ourselves.

This is the entire point of the Bible.  The Bible is an assembly of books written over many years by the hands of many different people.  It’s sole purpose is to offer us an understanding of God’s thinking about how we can live and interact with him. 

To use some jargon - that self-centered tendency to follow our appetites at the expense of the best thing, the Bible calls sin.  To allow us the freedom to live as we were intended - an elaborate plan has been devised and executed.  I can’t do it justice in a few words on this blog - but God provides us this lighthouse in Jesus - who is both God and Man simultaneously.  By simply believing him and doing as he asks, we can win our freedom back.  

We can live as we desire - and, ultimately, as we were constructed to live.  And we can avoid the natural and appropriate consequences of living in a way far beneath our ultimate purpose.

Your Friend,

Kyle