Covenants, Part V - Equality of Responsibility and Rights

In the previous lesson we addressed Precepts of Constitutionalism in a free society.

Equality of Responsibility and Rights

Those early American settlers who came to this land seeking liberty and freedom were unique among most colonization of that time. Their struggle was not merely to escape tyranny or gain riches of gold but to achieve the burden of responsibility and the pearl of freedom.

"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." George Bernard Shaw.

In America the people have steadily turned over the power and authority granted to every man by God in order to obtain the benefits of government. Or else, "Because of what appears to be a lawful command on the surface, many citizens, because of their respect for what only appears to be a law, are cunningly coerced into waiving their rights, due to ignorance."1

"Any doctrine that weakens personal responsibility for judgment and for action helps create the attitudes that welcome and support the totalitarian state. "2

Does mankind do this because they are abandoning their God given responsibility through avarice and apathy or because they are ignorant of the importance of exercising that responsibility in order to maintain their corresponding rights?

"Protection draws to it subjection; subjection protection"3

When people become dependent upon government institutions to do that which they should do for themselves they become dependent, weak and subject.

"Nothing strengthens the judgment and quickens the conscience like individual responsibility."4

Government, in order to provide the benefits of security and order expected of it, has set about revising, editing and adding to the legal system with an overwhelming zeal. This has been a common trend by central governments that has always ended in the same historical disaster, called tyranny. Has this system gone astray down that path or is the concept of central government fundamentally flawed?

In order for central governments to keep the people secure
they must first secure the people.

It was not the written Constitution of the United States but the body of precepts, actions and deeds that predated its adoption including those that secured the charters--- that were the earlier guardian of the American free dominion. The Constitution for the United States was written to regulate the government but also outlined additional powers and duties entrusted to that centralized institution. The constitution was never the whole body of law, the origin of our original freedom nor was it the desired destination of the average freeman.

"The civil law reduces the unwilling freedman to his original slavery;

but the laws of the Angloes judge once manumitted as ever after free." 5

There is always men who want to be free but they are not always as willing to let their neighbor enjoy that same freedom. Most revolutions are simply won by the most dominant force. "In a democracy, the individual enjoys not only the ultimate power but carries the ultimate responsibility." 6

The colonies wished to govern themselves and some thought that governments were instituted for the protection of rights with constitutions devised to restrain government. While others believe, "The purpose of government is to rein in the rights of the people."7

"And still others believed that, "In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other."8

The colonies experimented with many ideas and forms of socialism and democracy. For the most part they survived them, the same as they did the wild Indians, ravenous fauna and the elements of this new land.

As the colonists who feared the oppression of their former governments attempted to check the possibility that their freedoms might be taken away. They quickly realized, that, "Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people." 9

Jefferson knew that "Democracy was nothing more than mob rule where 51% of the people could take away the rights of the other 49." "A modern democracy is a tyranny whose borders are undefined; one discovers how far one can go only by traveling in a straight line until one is stopped." 10

"Socialism is the doctrine that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that his life and his work do not belong to him, but belong to society, that the only justification of his existence is his service to society, and that society may dispose of him in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own tribal, collective good." 11

Under Capitalism man exploits man;

Under Communism the process is reversed.

"Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame and danger that their acts would otherwise involve... But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to the other persons to whom it doesn't belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish that law without delay ... No legal plunder; this is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony and logic." 12

The more the colonists experimented the more they mistrusted power in the hands of government. And the more they saw the value in self-reliance tempered with brotherhood, compassion and concern for your fellow man by daily choice the more they and their freedom became inseparable.

There was some limited authority that was vested in the representatives of the original Colonial Republics and those State Republics following the Declaration of Independence. However none of the vested authority of those Republics could make laws regulating the Natural behavior or the exercise of Inalienable Rights of the freeman without their consent.

"Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility ... In the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have is the ability to take on Responsibility." 13

Why did the colonists know this? They saw it in action and the fruits of it in the face of adversity. And they had read it in the Bible.

"Arise! For this matter is your responsibility, but we will be with you; be courageous and act." Ezra 10:4 14

They saw socialism fail and knew quickly that from each according to his ability and to each according to his need led to disastrous shortages and a weakened colony. They knew that the sin of Sodom was abundance of idleness and not strengthening the hand of the poor and needy. 15

And that, "The hand of the diligent shall bear rule: but the slothful shall be under tribute." 16 And they knew that socialism violated the commandments by coveting your neighbors goods. 17.

Those pilgrims colonizing this American continent had become self-sufficient individuals and self-reliant as a truly independent people while enduring the hardships of the wilderness and struggling with the lessons and precepts of their most read book, the Bible. They knew not to depend on government but upon each other in voluntary cooperation because they knew, "When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee: And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite. Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat." 18

They were beginning to learn to love thy neighbor as thyself out of necessity, if not design.

They understood that, "Justice will only exist where those not affected by injustice are filled with the same amount of indignation as those offended." 19

The key to good government is good men who govern themselves in the ways of the Father of us all. When people are for their neighbors as much as they are for themselves then a government by the people will prosper. When men fail to love their neighbor as themselves then no checks and balances or constitutions will save them from their folly. Leviticus 19:18 and Matthew 19:19, Luke 10:27.

Abundant poverty in a nation is the result of moral bankruptcy.

Thy princes [are] rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them. Isaiah 1:23.

"The price of greatness is responsibility." 20

If you want to become a slave all you have to do is to require others to provide for you what you should be providing for yourself. Just covet your neighbors' goods and you, too, shall be sold into bondage. The colonists had heard that, "...through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not." 2 Peter 2:3

If you are to be redeemed you must look for the beam in your own eye. If you want your rights you must take back responsibility for yourself, for your family, and for your neighbor.

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