“Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.” — James Madison
Our biggest concern in America today is the Democratic Party’s abuse of power, their desire for tyrannical control, and an unlimited government (“Our rights come from government, not God,” Democratic Senator Tim Kaine said a few months ago). If government gives us our rights, then government can take them away at will, and that is as good a definition of totalitarian government as one could wish for. It is exactly what Communist China has today, what Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and every other tyranny the world has ever seen foisted upon their people. It is exactly what tyrants and government—and Democrats—want.
So, patriotic Americans (following our Founding Fathers) fear unlimited, oppressive government. We rarely, if ever, think in the terms that Mr. Madison spoke of in the quote at the beginning of this column. Too much liberty? Is that possible? Well, yes, it is. If a person has “too much” freedom, he might use that to infringe upon the rights of others. The problem, and it is not a small one, is how we define “freedom,” and what should its limitations be? And what makes this such a problem is that humans have never agreed on that, nor will they ever. Nor will I solve it to the world’s satisfaction in this article. God solved it, but we don’t pay much attention to Him, so…we end up with “tyrannical” freedom or tyrannical governments.
There is probably absolutely no restriction on freedom that everyone today (or in the past or future) could agree upon. “Well,” somebody says, “we all agree that murder should be restricted.” No, we don’t, because even that term is subject to human definition and mendacity. Americans have murdered millions of unborn babies, but we euphemistically call it “abortion” so that we can salve our consciences and convince ourselves we aren’t truly killing human beings. But even if we don’t like abortion as an example of murder, it still becomes a matter of personal or cultural interpretation.
How many innocent people did Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and other leftist, socialist dictators kill in the 20th century? The Chinese are still killing people in the name of the “Marxist” revolution. And while you and I are aghast at these “murders,” that is our interpretation of what “murder” is. Obviously, Lenin, Stalin, et al, didn’t consider these mass killings as “murder,” and how many people, even today, support Marxism and defend its principles, the principles that led to such mass killings? “They are all going to die anyway,” Stalin said. China still puts a caricature of Mao Zedong on every money bill they print. Mao was the greatest mass murderer in human history, but obviously, the Chinese don’t think so. He’s their icon. The “freedom” to “murder” has been, all through history, a subject of disagreement and varying interpretation among human beings.
So, “freedom” may not be as easy to define as we think it is. And it certainly is widely disagreed upon in America today. Some men want the “freedom” to call themselves women, while intelligent people realize how ridiculous and harmful that is. (I was talking to one of my Chinese English students recently, a very intelligent 18-year-old high school student, and he was laughing at the idea of transgenderism and men “marrying” men. “No, we don’t do that in China.” He and the Chinese people think those ideas are absurd. They are laughing at us, folks, and sometimes it is embarrassing to be an American.) Democrats want illegal aliens to have the “freedom” to come into America, live off American taxpayers or take American jobs, and vote, go to our schools, have driver’s licenses, murder, etc. Transgender people want the “freedom” to mutilate children for sexually perverted purposes. Are these things truly what “freedom” consists of?
If there is no true absolute human definition or agreement upon what “freedom” is, then what did Mr. Madison mean by the “abuse of liberty”? Does—can—such a thing really exist?
We all agree that “freedom” exists and can be “abused.” But leftists believe that Mr. Trump, conservatives, and capitalists misuse freedom, and conservatives et al argue the Left is doing so. My point was, and is, humans have never settled what “freedom” actually consists of, and humans are farther apart in any agreement on a definition today than perhaps we have ever been in history.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23). It is never wrong to practice any of these virtues, and God gives us the freedom to exercise them any time we wish. But as I said earlier, humans pay very little attention to God today, and as a result, we don’t know what true freedom is, we disagree on it, often violently, and the world today is a cesspool of decadence, hatred, barbarism, perversion, cruelty, dishonesty, debauchery, and every other evil one could name. In other words, the abuse of true liberty.
Yes, Mr. Madison and our Founding Fathers constantly warned us about the abuse of power by government, and they tried to establish a system that would limit such abuse. But at the same time, sadly, government is necessary because some people abuse freedom! Our Founders recognized that as well, and that is why they gave us a government. A limited government. One that won’t abuse power and become tyrannical. A government that, as John Adams said, was “only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Not a totalitarian government, Senator Kaine.
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