Riley's World

According to our Declaration of independence, a government exists to protect a man's (and woman's) right to life, liberty, and happiness.

This has interesting implications that I've never thought of before.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;"

I just read an article by William Bennet where he sums up the function of the government well: "I believe -- and always believed -- that government, as an institution, is normally for deployments of last resort, to do what individuals cannot do or are not as efficient as government in doing (as waging war): and to pick up where individuals fall and fail (as in providing Social Security and welfare)." (www.claremont.org/writings/040318bennet.html)

However, to argue that the purpose of government is to legislate morality, or "values," is a bit more difficult. Such a broad definition could allow the government to easily overstep its bounds and infringe on civil liberties.

Thanks for the post -- it's an interesting subject!

Some very insiteful comments form Mr. Riley today...

I agree with your definition, but you're not quite at the lowest level... I would say your definintion, heave on values, is derrived from a lower more broad definition. I would word it this way (based largely on my good old philosohpy class) "A governenment exsists to provide whatever services the citizens require to serve the greater good of those citizens." I'm sure that a clever man such as yourself has no trouble expanding that to values.

I do sometimes wonder why it is that christians flock to the right... people have been convinced that the conservative part of political system has better "christian" values when in my studies of the bible I don't see it that way...

Still... for good or ill, a lot of your ilk do go BLINDLY to the right...

I can't help but wonder if this latest insite into christian politics was inspired by Jerry Fallwell's latest remarks about "...killing them all in the name of the lord."... cuz honestly... at that moment... I lost a little faith in humanity... and it seems to fit the topic.

Dave - I am finding that American Christians tend to lean to the right, whereas the Europeans tend to lean more to the left, especially on issues of 'social justice.' I would suspect that, honestly, the reason for this in the US is the utter disdain with which the left treats anything that has to do with Christianity. Not religion, mind you, but Christianity.
On a side note, I also think it is unfair to lump Christias and (the at times rather tactless) Fallwell...
I am working on a blog about Capitalism and how it relates to the Bible. I think you'll be surprised by it (if I ever finish).

Pat,

I meant no disrespect to you, Mike, or any Rocker... I just enjoy the kind of... frank political discussion I'm used to enjoying with Mike (and Matt too I suppose).

I can't say that you're wrong about SOME of the left's treatment of Christianity, but I can say that there is a lot of back and fourth from both sides (and not all members of either group, I might add). I dont know who started it, tho Fox News (who I've seen you mention in your BLOG) would probably have you believe it's the left, and that the left is also responsible for 3rd world hunger, the death of Elvis, the break-up of the Beatles, all terrorisim everywhere, and a number of other unspeakable crimes.

Where was I before my fox news rant? Ahhh yes... I don't know who started it, and frankly I don't care. No one who majorly participates in the back and fourth action is blamess (including me, to some small degree)... all I know is no one is benefiting from the fighting except the GOP.

Also... realizing that Fallwell dosen't seem to lead THAT many today... Fallwell is MORE than tactless... I don't think you can call anyone who talks about killing in the name of the lord (and MEANS it) a christian, or even that good of a man. SERIOUSLY, that is somthing that I think would have made Jesus verry sad... or angry... I'm not kidding in the least. As a side note, I didn't intend to lump you together, in fact I quite expected Mike here to disargee with those comments of Mr. Fallwell, if not be outraged by them... tho upon review I can see where that wasn't to clear in my post.

I appreciate the discussion. :) (Thanks for all who are sharing and will share in the future.) I agree with you Dave in that I appreciate frank and open political discussion. I however, do make one request. I'm not too interested in wild theories (or rants, unless there is a point), but rather a seach for the truth (and good discussion).

As to Fallwell, forgive my ignornace to current events (or previous current events) but I wasn't sure what he said. It may be helpful in the future to provide a link.

And I'm not interested in how people who have called themselves Christians who may have smeared the Gospel, Christ or the reputation of Christians/the Church (as an example: "killing in the name of the Lord") but more of C.S. Lewis' take of presenting Christianity raw, as in "Mere Christianity". I want to present, to the best of my ability and consequently, growth through this discussion and forumn of what the Biblical Historical-Contextual Literal Interpretation of what defines Christianity and how 'real' Christians should line up with political thought/idealogy.

The first post was geared at establishing the fundamental basis of government. I appreciate your definition Dave. (Thanks for sharing.) I'll have to give it some thought. In my understanding of history, where I have seen 'christians' go wrong is when they use the 'christianity' to define the government at the expense of loosing key doctrines. For example when Christianity was made state religion. It forgoes the important doctrine that God gave man freewill, and more importantly, freewill to freely choose or reject Him. As such, to set that kind of state government/religion would be a serious Biblical flaw, and I'd go as far as to call it outright sin. They violated God's original intention.

Also, originally mentioned, I want to provide a forumn for challenging Christians to wrestle with polical ideas they may have held on to from their former way of life and not have necessarily evaluated them from a Biblical world-view. (As such, I hope to gain as much from this forumn as any reader would, maybe even more so since it has and will continue to require research on my part.) And then to provide a forumn for those who disagree with the Biblical world-view to disagree/be heard and for me to understand what it is they are thinking. (Also as a means to checking if what I really believe is true, for if it is true, it will withstand criticism and questioning. If all I had were 'yes' men/women, I'd be disappointed in this forumn.)

So, until the next major post... let's keep discussing. :)

More instight from Mr. Riley... Also, given his last post I appologize for going off on Fox News, this is not the pace to air such pet peevs... That all aside, I find that I agree with most all of that last post from MTR... I have nothing else to argue in the disucssion at hand... I wouldn't post at all, but you aksed for a link so I took this from my BLOG entry from a few days ago...

Quoting Jesse Jackson and Jerry Falwell...

"Let's stop the killing and choose peace," Jackson responded. "Let's choose negotiation over confrontation."
"Well, I'm for that too," Falwell added. "But you've got to kill the terrorists before the killing stops. And I'm for the president to chase them all over the world. If it takes 10 years, blow them all away in the name of the Lord."

Source link:
http://www.baptiststandard.com/postnuke/index.php?module=htmlpages&func=display&pid=2518&print=1
(I also saw snippits of this on the News, and the Daily Show)

A couple of things ...

In a contest between Matt's DofI def and Riley's societal def (the two must be weighted against each other, as there are many cases where the they contradict), I lean heavily in favor of the DofI. Ultimately, the battle is one of individual rights vs a reverence of the common good. "The proper functional health of society" has been used to justify a plethora of nasty things in history, all in the name of a greater good. Utilitarianism scares me.

Historically, theists tend to side with a concept of individual rights outweighing utility. This can be seen when examining the fathers of modern political thought, Hobbes and Locke. Hobbes, operating from a naturalistic view, advocates an absolutist who is willing to revoke rights in the name of a graeter good. Contrast this with Locke's social contract and the role he gives God in the institution of government. Hobbes' ideals would be Louis XIV (who interestingly played the 'divine right of kings' card), or even Robespierre, both rulers not above bending the rules for what they percieved as societal gain. Locke's ideals play out well in Jefferson, whose framing of the DofI is an obvious application of Locke, and whose presidency was one which could best be described as conservative in the 20th century sense (tho not the 19th). These contrasts in secular, European (specifically french) and deistic American governance grew more stark as time wore on.

While the concept of individual rights in so many words is not explicit in the Bible, the the gift of life from God, along with the condition "do not kill" suffice to establish an inalienable right to life (inalienable by man anyway). Other rights follow from there. Incidentally, this does not work with 90% of the things modern liberals call rights (i.e. the right to get drunk and make prank phone calls, grrrr).

As far as the modern political parties are concerned, neither holds the sole high ground on the issue of individual rights. However, republicanism, in my opaque view, has the right answers on most of the issues, abortion leading among them. Were a Guiliani or a Schwarzenegger to run in ’08, I would probably find a good third party to cast a ballot for, as unattractive as that is right now.

In defense of Falwell (not sure he deserves it at this point), but couldn’t one use Augustine’s Just War doctrine to justify anti-terrorism ‘in God’s name’? So clean up the imagery a bit, and I think that’s the essense of Falwell’s point. That, or he likes killing people that are different from him, and thinks God likes it too. None of us know the guy, so we can't presume either way.

Wyatt,

Can you remind me again why you are a EE and not a Political Science/Religious studies/philosophy major???????

:)

Wow. Thanks Ben for the post. I'll be addressing this topic in the next major post. (Source of government power/utilitiarian/value basis.)

Thanks again for the discussion.

-MTR

wow, this is almost the discussion group i always dreamed of...
thank you mr. creator of blogs!
and thanks michael, for dishing this stuff up for people to discuss.

I'm with the Declaration. Government exists to protect individual rights, not to safeguard values. The former Taliban government in Afghanistan was safeguarding its values, yet it was totally dysfunctional, illegitimate, and ran the country into the ground.

When government intrudes into values, the question is immediately: Whose values? And what happens to people who don't share those values?

People disagree strongly over values. But individual rights -- so-called "negative" rights, anyway -- do not conflict.

Something just occured to me...

1)MTR asked for the broad definition of Government, not necessarily the US.

2)If we are speaking about the US I would think the US constitution (the foundation of all law in the US) would be a better document than the Declaration of Independance (which was basically just a big F U to King George)... on that thought...

"Preamble: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

This is the purpose of the United States Government.

The DofI spoke to a universal purpose of Government, which is why I thought it was an apt thing to bring up in this discussion.

This is true... the statements of the DofI shouldn't be dismissed, but I feel the US-Con is a better document for this discussion.

Also... not to nitpick, but I think you'd agree you made one small mistake in your first post there you said "happiness" instead of "the persuit of happiness"... just for the sake of correctness and completeness, the US government dosen't exitst to make us all happy, just to make sure we have enough freedom to find our own happiness...

Ha! Michael's got a blog... a GOOD blog with SUBSTANCE... (hint to all notourhome bloggers).

;)

Since the discussion has died (as I was really enjoying it) let me say somthing another aspect of MTR's original post...

He said somthing about "true christians" not necessarily being conservative or liberal... I think that is not the case. The tennants of fundamental christianity tend towards being socially conservative, and fiscally liberal.

You see... the tennants of the bible (and you may correct me if you feel I'm wrong) preach towards helping the poor, needy etc. etc... although there are many good charity organizations to help them, none work as well as the government programs. This is one example of why christians should = fiscally liberal... there are others... I'm sure you can come up with a few... especially since one person involved in this discussion has told me that the lifestyle preached by the New Testament is ALMOST a sort of communisim... for those not politically minded, "communisim" isn't a dirty word, get the cold war out of your head, it's just a place on the political spectrum.

Now... I also said that "true christians" tend towards social conservatisim... This is because being socally conservative includes being pro-life and aginst gay marriage. Even tho I find biblical (new testimate) basis for these positions lacking, almost every fundamental christian in america holds these positions.

I have held, for some time, that we need more major parties in America (one of my biggest pet peevs with the government, actually, is that we're a two party system), and if there was one that was fiscally liberal and socially conservative, that was ALSO viable (I say this because I'm sure there's a 3rd party alive now who is in that corner of the political spectrum).

In regards to the relative applicability of our founding documents, I believe that the DofI has a much more eloquent manner to it than giving the king the finger. True, there exists an element of that, but specifically in the early porions of the document, we find a logical base formed for the ideal goverance. We see:

1 A creator, who gives us rights
2 These rights being unalienable, except by said creator. Essensially, denying one rights in order to advance a 'party' is idolotry, setting the interests of government above what God has called his own.
3 The role of the individual in maintaining those rights. Not a class, not a structure inherent in any system, but you and I.

THEN, and only then, did Jefferson lay out grievances which morally obligated the colonists to revolt.

The Constitution carries elements of this as well, but was written with both ideals, that of utility and that of individual rights, at the same time. Thus, we see the problem with evaluating constitutionality, because no heirarchy of ideals is established. (now proceeding on a tangent) Indeed, when judging framers' intent, one must look to ALL the founding documents, ranging form the DofI, The Federalist Papers, and other personal writings. Of course, this all assumes that EVERY framer was absolutely perfect, or even a Christian (a very bad assumption), so one must question Judicial Review as a concept without scripture as a guide for justices.

This leaves us with something that hasn't really been mentioned in this particular blog on gov't, what God says, specifically to the Israelites, and how he rewards and punishes acts which are against the individual and for socity, and vice versa. Frankly, I feel a tad unqualified to address this issue specifically (tad = very, very, very). Anybody else feel like it would be a good discussion group/lecture topic next semester?