Template:Regulate

Regulating society

Has our unregulated appetite for benefits from the government caused us to become over regulated by the government?

Guns, marijuana, alcohol and tide pods are all “Dangerous!”

Their use should be regulated.

The question is by whom?

People are “Dangerous” too.

But the most “Dangerous!” thing of the last century and one of the most dangerous things throughout the history of man is government and its wars.

This includes not just war on terrorists but also on drugs and poverty.

Government attempts to regulate "illegal substances" has not only increased the police powers of government, thereby reducing the rights of the people, but also it has created an underground criminal industry which perpetrates violent gangs and murders all over the world. It has also made criminals out of millions of people who have done little or no harm to anyone and are often being incarcerated in a growing "prison industrial complex" at unbelievable expense to themselves and the taxpayers.

When people give the government the right and responsibility to make choices for them and their neighbor they are giving government power. Power corrupts. The power to choose and regulate Guns, marijuana, alcohol and tide pods, etc. should be in the hands of the people but the responsibility and repercussions of bad choices should also rest with the people.

• “When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown ... the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint... It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold... they neglect their chief business which is to remain their own masters.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America Volume 2

People should regulate their own use of Guns, marijuana, alcohol and tide pods etc. but the right to be free to choose includes the responsibility for the choices you make.

Before anyone considers legalized substances previously controlled by government they may need to also legalize the consequences of the abuses of those substances. If people make bad choices then they should, (indeed they must) be allowed to suffer the consequences of those bad choices without government intervention.

With the great power of choice, we call liberty, comes great responsibility. Without that stipulation society itself will degenerate into a mob of immoral souls and the foolish will take license to burden the wise with their self-indulgence.

In fact, this has already happened in many areas of society. Somewhere in the evolution of American society, it has become acceptable to take by force from your neighbor what you think you need to be secure and safe. This was listed as a sin at one time by Jews, Christians, and even Muslims. Now they all seem to turn a blind eye to this immoral provision of coveting thy neighbors' goods in today's modern world.

• “America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” Alexis de Tocqueville

Every year people allow the governments to raise the debt ceiling it curses the next generation with the debt of their desires. Our parents in their blindness did it to us and we do it to the next generation if they are allowed to be born at all.

America is no longer great, not because of corruption or the swamp of government, but because of the corruption in our own hearts and minds. Desiring benefits at the expense of your neighbor was a sin among Christians from the beginning. It was the "wages of unrighteousness", the wages of sin.

Americans used to take care of all social welfare of society without looking to the use of force through government institutions. Any institution of government that provides for the social welfare of the people is a move toward socialism and a socialist institution.

• “Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.” Alexis de Tocqueville

You cannot blame the government for the present loss of freedom or the stench arising from your own covetous practices. After all, governments are instituted by men and it is our choices to look to governments of the world rather than one another. We have created the swamp monster through our own wantonness and our selective blindness.

Yes, guns, marijuana, alcohol and tide pods should be regulated by individuals but only by those individuals who will take full responsibility for their lives and the choices they make.

In other words, if people lose their jobs or even injure themselves by abusive bad choices they should not be bailed out by government welfare, social security, Medicaid or Medicare. They should not be rewarded for the self-indulgence and wanton abuse and the adulteration of their own bodies and lives.

Many will cry that such social discipline is not kind but many of those who complain probably already have spoiled children or are like spoiled children themselves. Almost everyone who thinks government welfare is the solution for social problems also believes in evolution. Guaranteed entitlement benefits or bail outs with no regard for individual bad choices undermines society by obfuscating the principle factors of evolution models.

• “Princes made violence a physical thing.. despotism tried to reach the soul by striking crudely at the body; and the soul, eluding such blows, rose gloriously above it. Tyranny in democratic republics does not proceed in the same way, however. It ignores the body and goes straight for the soul.” Alexis de Tocqueville

The good Samaritan, not the government, pulled the battered man from the ditch who ended up in that desperate state through no fault of his own. If his wounds were self-inflicted a different strategy and criteria may need to be applied for the Samaritan is aiding both the victim and the abuser. Governments are not proficient at such soulful discretion because they are incapable of it.

Charity is the practice of choice in being good and goodness is the product of the soul.

Government has no soul for it is the institution of man, not God. Governments can only choose to offer or give away what belongs to others. There is no charity in that unless what the government has received is freely given. Governments which tax the people only have to give what they have taken away from others at the point of a sword. These are not institutions of charity but of force.

• "The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults." Alexis de Tocqueville

The reason that I am constantly quoting Alexis de Tocqueville is that he saw what made America great and to encourage the postmodernist American that if a Frenchman can figure out the problem, then a true and moral American should be able to institute the solution.

If people want to make America great again they need to start taking back their individual responsibilities. Until Americans or any people, succeed in a democracy or a republic they need to wake up to the fact that to enjoy rights requires that you manage your responsibilities and duties for yourself and to your family and to your fellow man.

This was always done through what the gospel calls Pure Religion.

• “everybody feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy enough to seek the cure” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

People would like to think that democracy is the answer and it would be if not for the people. The problem with most democratic legal systems and the people in them is they are just as addicted to governments and the receiving of benefits as they are likely going to be addicted to other substances currently restricted by the government.

• “Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.” Alexis de Tocqueville

It is not moral to force one neighbor to provide for another. It is certainly not charity. Tocqueville observed what made America great was its charitable and philanthropic associations of the people within every community, village, and township.

• "Americans group together to hold fêtes, found seminaries, build inns, construct churches, distribute books, dispatch missionaries to the antipodes. They establish hospitals, prisons, schools by the same method. Finally, if they wish to highlight a truth or develop an opinion by the encouragement of a great example, they form an association." Alexis de Tocqueville 1840, 596.

Once the people imagined that it was moral to take away from one neighbor to provide for individual members of society including themselves, they became blind to the process of their own enslavement.

• "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money." Alexis de Tocqueville

Americans have sold their right to manage their own affairs for the right to take from their neighbor through government force. If Americans are going to see again and return to liberty they must see their own folly and sin and thus return the responsibility of choice and the repercussion of bad choices back to the people.

Do we demand our liberty back before we are willing to take back the responsibilities of society that Tocqueville saw making America great? We must take back our responsibilities first and have a right to do so in what Tocqueville called free association.

• "In the United States, as soon as several inhabitants have taken an opinion or an idea they wish to promote in society, they seek each other out and unite together once they have made contact. From that moment, they are no longer isolated but have become a power seen from afar whose activities serve as an example and whose words are heeded" Alexis de Tocqueville 1840, 599.

He did not see the people looking to government. In truth, the best men of society did not seem to think it was a noble pursuit.

• “I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.”  Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Those who do seek the office of modern government must keep close to their hearts an understanding of the forces that both may build and destroy society. Those forces rest first in the hearts of men and not in the seat of government.

To make our political goal the alleviation of the burdens of bad government from the people is like trying to produce a hangover free alcohol or withdrawal free heroin. To remove the pain of bad government may be counterproductive to awakening the people or weaning them from their addiction to socialism.

• “It is indeed difficult to imagine how men who have entirely renounced the habit of managing their own affairs could be successful in choosing those who ought to lead them. It is impossible to believe that a liberal, energetic, and wise government can ever emerge from the ballots of a nation of servants.” Alexis de Tocqueville

But it also may be counterproductive to do nothing for that would certainly not set a good example of mercy. The man lying in a ditch of self-inflicted addiction may still need a hand up but not without applying the necessary incentive for a more moral behavior in the future any act of mercy may be void of mercy. So the question remains the same, how do you help the poor or those deprived of rights to choose without weakening them?

If do not give back the full responsibly correlative to rights at the same time you give back the liberty of the people to choose for themselves then you may be held responsible for their choices.  Can we in good conscience give a loaded gun to a small child or your car keys to a drunk?

There is no solution to return to a state of liberty without first returning to a state of morality and responsibility. Ultimately those who want their rights back must be allowed to suffer the consequence of their abuse of liberty if they are going to enjoy liberty.

That is Natural Law.