Historical examples
The Fourth of July weekend is now behind us. We have celebrated our nation’s 250th anniversary. It’s now time to get on with life and face the reality of what it means to preserve freedom.
Or, to look at it in a more alarming context, it is time to consider how free people lose their freedom.
It does happen, you know. It happened with the Roman Republic, the French Revolution, and more recently with the Weimar Republic becoming Nazi Germany.
In the arc of world history, 250 years is a relatively short period of time. The Roman Empire lasted 502 years, the Byzantine Empire 1,123 years, and the Ottoman Empire 623 years. So, it’s not clear whether we will make it long term yet. It could go either way. To use a football analogy, it’s still early in the first half.
The reason is not a secret
So, it is useful to explore how free people lose their freedom. Interestingly, it is not really a secret. In fact, I don’t even think it’s hotly disputed. It’s just something people—particularly those who live on the fringe of liberty—prefer not to talk about.
Free people lose their freedom when they choose not to govern themselves responsibly.
And when they choose not to govern themselves responsibly, they become enslaved. John 8:34. They become enslaved to sin, and by extension to the government, and to others.
People lose freedom financially when out of envy and covetousness they choose to become indebted. Because they cannot wait to buy a big house, they take on a mortgage they cannot afford, which shrinks their disposable income, requiring them to continue earning a certain level of income for the next thirty years. Their freedom is lost not because of poor economic conditions, or the man sticking it to them, but because they chose something (a big house) they wanted more than freedom.
People lose freedom when out of fear they decide their security and safety is more important than their liberty. We now allow TSA agents to place their hands on us as a condition of traveling on a commercial airline, something Americans would never have consented to 50 years ago. But we decided at some point that safety from terrorists was worth more than freedom from being searched by strangers before boarding planes.
People lose their freedom when they steal from and abuse others, whether that happens on the streets of a major city or through insider trading and corporate fraud. That requires more police and more government laws and regulations.
We need speed limits because people will not drive a reasonable speed. We need laws and regulations against unsafe workplaces and pollution because companies choose profit over safe workplaces and environmentally clean factories.
How to avoid it
And here is the thing: none of the above has much, if anything, to do with politics. It’s about personal choices. It is not a Republican thing or a Democratic thing. It’s a sin thing.
As Alexis de Tocqueville wrote after spending nearly a year in America, “And what can be done with a people who are their own masters, if they be not submissive to the Divinity?”
In short, preserving our freedom going forward has less to do with whether the Republicans or the Democrats govern than whether we govern ourselves. GS
