Webster's defines power as the "ability to do, act, or produce". Force is defined as "strength; energy; vigor, power". Power is needed to force an action or a non-action.
Politicians are generally endowed with a stubborn ego and in the American system with a pragmatic outlook that motivates them to influence the voting public more thoroughly than their adversaries. Their quest for office is often motivated by a desire to exert power over others.
Prior to the advent of radio and television, when the press had numerous outlets and freely expressed a variety of opinions, money played a less vital role in the electoral process. Today, success requires great personal wealth or the backing of it. Favorable coverage by the press, radio, and television is indispensable in winning elections.
The Senate and the Congress are organized on a seniority basis with powerful positions being held by senior members. Power and responsibility are meted out to those who support the party line and are able to consistently gain the majority of their constituents votes.
Loyalty is of utmost importance. Political parties expect junior members to conform to the party line and those who put their oath of office ahead of party loyalty remain without power and authority.
Our elected officials are privileged individuals. Their opinions are sought; they are fawned over and adulated. Large sums are allocated to them to travel, to hire an office staff, and to live in the opulence of the Seat of Government. Though they set the pattern for the existence of their fellow citizens they live above the fray and are not subject to their own rulings.
Following the return to his medical practice in Oklahoma, Representative Thomas Coburn wrote a book entitled Breach of Trust revealing the pernicious motives of the political leaders of the House of Representatives. He blamed many of the problems on the perennial desire for re-election. One reviewer wrote,
"It's easy to see that with a philosophy like that, an era of good government will never arrive. Terrified of losing their seats, politicians pursue politically safe policies even if they are destructive in the long term. Members of Congress know that Medicare and Social Security are heading for financial disaster, yet they do not pursue meaningful reform for fear of their opponents scoring political points on them in the next election cycle. Congressmen divert tens of millions of dollars to wasteful pet projects in their districts, jeopardizing public safety and sapping the people's trust in government. They vote on bills they haven't read and exercise precious little oversight over how the money is spent. Amidst the heated rhetoric about hurting the children, the elderly and the poor, it becomes difficult to defend principles of sound governance and fidelity to the Constitution. Coburn's clear-eyed dissection of the mechanics of these excesses is one of the great virtues of his book."
Former Congressman Coburn kept his term limit promise but did not remain a private citizen for long before the siren of prestige and power again beckoned. In a bitter campaign, he ran and won against Democrat Brad Carson for the Senate seat vacated by longtime Republican Senator Don Nickles. Recently Senator Coburn, conforming to the party line, voted for CAFTA. This is a man who opined from the floor of Congress,
"I would love to have been in a room with our founding fathers, because while we talk about majority-minority parties, I am sure they did not talk about majority-minority parties. They talked about doing what was best for this country regardless of what an individual's party says. It should be what is best for our [country], not what is good for our party. The founding fathers never once rationalized getting in power and having control so they could stay in power. What they said was, we are going to put this Union together and we are going to make it work because the people are going to have the integrity to do what is best for their constituents and they are going to have the vision to make sure that they do not make a short-term choice that sacrifices the long-run choice."
Hard to believe one who admired these sentiments could vote for legislation that ignores our Constitution, compromises our sovereignty, and "sacrifices the long-run choice" he claimed to support. But then those addicted to prestige and power are always willing to sacrifice character.
Thomas More (1478-1535) was an official in the administration of England's King Henry VIII. More, a man of character, was executed for his opposition to King Henry's contention with the Catholic Church. He was the main character in the 1966 movie A Man for All Seasons. This classic exchange is included in one of the reviews of this film,
"William Roper urges More, when he is chancellor, to arrest a man who is a threat to More but who has committed no crimes. When More refuses, Roper can't believe it: 'You'd give the devil benefit of law!' 'Yes,' More replies, 'What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the devil?' Roper: 'Yes! I'd cut down every law in England to do that!' More: 'Oh? And when the last law was down and the devil turned round on you where would you hide, the laws all being flat? ...Yes, I'd give the devil benefit of law for my own safety's sake.'"
Thomas More understood that freedom is a product of obedience to law; while Roper provides an excellent example of the humanistic pragmatism that pervades our present government.
In the following Century, close to a hundred years later (1644), Reverend Samuel Rutherford penned Lex Rex (The Law is King) in which he wrote
"The law is not the king'`s own but is given to him in trust. Power is a birthright of the people borowed from them; they may let it out for their good, and resume it when a man is drunk with it; A limited and mixed monarchy hath glory, order, unity from a monarch; from the government of the most and wisest hath safety of counsel, stability, strength; from the influence of the Commons it hath liberty, privileges, promptitude of obedience."
From the beginning Christians understood human addiction to power and Rutherford makes it clear by describing that addiction as drunkenness. This characteristic, foremost in the minds of America's founders, has been virtually forgotten by many Americans.
In 1850 Frederic Bastiat, suffering from terminal tuberculosis, penned a pamphlet entitled The Law" . Now published in a small book it is a classic short study of the perennial desire of some to force their opinions and their will on others, often by using law. He champions individual freedom and responsible, and law abiding government.
Bastiat defines law as "organized justice"; he describes its force and alludes to the power necessary for its enforcement but he fails to be specific about law's need for power. In The Institutes of Biblical Law Rousas Rushdoony writes "Law is not law if it lacks the power to bind, to compel, and to punish..The law is applied power, otherwise it ceases to be law."
Americans have been living under a planned incremental despotism for well over a hundred years. In the mid-Nineteenth Century the Civil War established the supremacy of the Federal Government. At the beginning of the Twentieth Century the Federal Reserve Act stole the Federal Government's exclusive supremacy, vesting ultimate power in the hands of individuals who sought it for its own sake. Since that time, from the President on down, our legislators allegiance has been substantially removed from the electorate and vested in the surreptitious hand of those who manipulate the voting option. The late Pastor Sheldon Emry described this process
"Democrat, Republican, and independent voters who have wondered why politicians always spend more tax money than they take in should now see the reason. When they begin to study our money system, they soon realize that these politicians are not the agents of the people but are the agents of the bankers, for whom they plan ways to place the people further in debt."
Power itself is not evil but when separated from its proper authority it quickly becomes so. God intends that power derived from His hegemony be used for the benefit of the social order.
Freedom in the humanist state is plagued by at least two different forces. One is the evil nature of humanity. Current pagans who fail to acknowledge man's sinful nature start with the wrong premise and always end in the wrong conclusion. Secondly, the lack of God's immutable legal structure begins a process of progressive confusion that always tends toward despotism.
There is only one legitimate legal system and that is God's Laws. Bastiat says law is "organized Justice". That is an apt description but it must be added that justice is a Godly attribute and can only be realized through His unchanging mandates. Humanistic justice is an outreach of the illegitimate use of power and will quickly owe it sole allegiance. All other systems are derived from the distorted minds of sinful men and will ultimately fall prey to their varying opinions.
Power received from the legal structure God has given us is legitimate power. Legitimate power used under the authority of its Grantor brings peace, prosperity, and righteousness to both the social order and the individuals who make it up. On the other hand power accumulated to bring about the evil desires of men or to construct the results of their imaginations is illegitimate and evil.
When individuals in government usurp the seat of God and legislate against His moral standards they become both evil and tyrannical.
Individual human egos are such that they always seem to know what is best for their neighbor. This is particularly true when they consider themselves intellectually superior. Separated from control by Godly mandate, they quickly attempt to put their human knowledge into practice.
King David's son, Absalom, conspired to wrest control of the Nation from his father without sanction and in spite of the peace and prosperity his father's government had brought to the Nation. His evil intentions were thwarted but they provide a stunning example of the need for constant vigilance against the inherent desire to "to be like God "which is born into all of fallen mankind.
With extraordinary insight, Dr. Rushdoony writes:
"If tomorrow all the internal and external enemies of the united States were miraculously destroyed, the major result would be the further decline and decay of American life; there would then be the freedom to sin with impunity insofar as historical consequences are concerned. If all or almost all Americans were at the same time miraculously converted, the evil would be compounded. The point of the daydream was humanistic: its purpose was national peace and freedom. Had it been international peace and freedom, the humanism would have been no less real. The chief end of such a dream is human order and man's peace. It is thus a variation of the social gospel."
Remembering that power vested in the people is derivative and must conform to God's Laws, government must follow Rev. Rutherford's admonition. Lex Rex, The Law must be King; not human law but God's Law. Government that throws off the restraint of God's mandates is both evil and progressively dictatorial.
America was formed as a Democratic Republic; citizens were to elect representatives who were to conduct the affairs of state in accordance with law. Considering the addiction to power that was a salient fact of history they divided the power centers in an effort to thwart imperialism. Today, the Republic has been forgotten and Democracy is being promoted in an effort to foster instability and ultimate despotism.
Though obedience to the clear mandates of our Constitution might be helpful it would, from God's perspective, be another evil since it not only would not recognize His dominion but would be solely a humanist effort.
America has cheapened the right to vote. Extensive suffrage has deteriorated the quality of the voting constituency and allowing the uninformed to be manipulated by a controlled press and media. Believing that voters should be qualified, Bastiat addresses this question with wisdom, "Because it is not the voter alone who suffers the consequences of his vote; because each vote touches and affects everyone in the entire community; because the people in the community have a right to demand some safe-guards concerning the acts upon which their welfare and existence depend."
America's Founders understood the inextricable relationship between Christianity and freedom. The governing documents of the early states required those in positions of authority to be Christians. In The Myth of Separation David Barton writes, "In 1644 the New Haven Colony adopted rules for their courts: The judicial laws of God as they were delivered by Moses. [are to] be a rule to all the courts in this jurisdiction". Most, if not all, of the original thirteen colonies required those in positions of authority to be Christians. Though this may clearly indicate their intentions, it does not solve the problem with Democratic government. If the right to vote is not restricted to Christians who are intent on maintaining the authority of the Living God over the affairs of state, the system will soon deteriorate.
There is only one road to freedom. It is the narrow path that recognizes all power as derivative and seeks to use it according to the mandates of the One Who Created It All.