By Jason Charles on 2/22/2016 (8 years 274 days ago) Politics & Government
Is Government Evil?
As a filmmaker during the hay-day of the 9/11 Truth activist movement I often heard people associated with the movement ascribe the terrorist attacks to the government. They would say things like "9/11 is an Inside Job" or the "the US government was behind the attacks", indicting the whole government as being complicit in those horrendous attacks. Yes, having researched the attacks extensively I am the first to admit that perhaps a few people inside of our government may of had both foreknowledge of the attacks, and maybe even played an active part. And yes, there were perhaps foreign state sponsors who provided personnel and material support, but to broad brush the entire government with guilt is simply juvenile in thinking. Any idiot knows that there is no way an institution made up of literally hundreds of thousands of employees would get together and conspire to attack the citizenry of the United States. To even assume that such a thing could occur is quite ludicrous and those making statements as such need to get their head examined. When people go to work for the federal government, they aren't shuttled off to some secret room and forced to sign a contract demanding their allegiance to the evil empire, that is not how any of this works.
Yet 15 years later this sentiment has not diminished, instead it has only grown to a fevered pitch. More and more people when speaking about the US government talk about government as if it as an institution is the embodiment of evil itself. For example, just this weekend an article in the Washington Post highlighted the defense strategy of one of the occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. In the article it is noted that all of the those arrested pleaded their cause as that of political protest, but Peter T. Santilli a internet radio host is said to be arguing that he was only there as an embedded media correspondent. The article noted the judges response,
"The prosecution played 20 minutes of clips from Santilli’s show for the court, dating as far back as last June, in which Santilli discusses burying illegal guns, dying a free man and shooting federal agents if they came through his door uninvited. And, in a clip District Court Judge Michael Mosman called “distasteful,” Santilli expressed a desire to “try, convict and shoot Hillary Clinton in the vagina.”
Santilli’s attorney, Thomas Coan, has argued that his client was not to be taken seriously, saying that these words were the bloviations of a “shock jock,” “an entertainer” and a “new media journalist.” Mosman saw Santilli’s words differently: “When he says he will die a free man, I don’t take that as a man who is joking about it,” he said." (Washington Post)
While there, Pete Santilli made countless accusations against the government voicing their anti-government sentiment to thousands tuning in to his radio broadcast. These are the comments and sentiments of a man who made no distinction between those who were responsible for the legislation and enabling of the BLM land grabs and the agents that were there attempting to serve the warrants. Both were guilty of federal oppression in their mind, and both deserved to be shot if you take Santilli's words at face value. True media should be synonymous with neutrality, if it isn't neutral then it is propaganda, and in Santilli's case propaganda towards anti-government sentiment.
The fact of the matter is Peter Santilli and all those that ascribe the characteristics of "evil" to the institution of government simply don't know what they're talking about. Government is not "evil", evil is a human characteristic and government not being human but an institution can't by itself be "evil." A simple illustration towards this point would be this. If you were to remove all of the people out of the halls of government, and all that was left was stagnant paperwork left on empty desks, in empty buildings would those buildings and paperwork and all of the material physical substance of government be evil? Of course they wouldn't. Paper, and desks, and empty buildings have no volition of their own. What makes government good or evil is the people that occupy those posts. Only people have the capability of being either good or evil.
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. Jeremiah 17: 9-10
Liberal Arguments are Always the Worst
What people fail to realize is when they argue that our government is totally evil and must be opposed in its entirety they are using the exact same argument that liberals use when attacking guns. Liberals are notorious for ascribing human characteristics to non-human things. Take the liberal gun argument for example, their mantra is "guns are bad", so instead of focusing on the guy pulling the trigger they seek to ban the gun itself. As if the gun has any consciousness and ability to do evil things. So if patriots and conservatives can see the fallacy of this argument in the raging gun debate in our country then why can't they see it also in their own rhetoric when describing the state of our government today?
Teddy Roosevelt once famously stated in a speech that “The government is us; WE are the government, you and I” and he is totally correct. The government is made up of people, all of which were born into this country, went to school here, got jobs here, have families here, have friends and eventually went into government. Government is nothing more than a reflection of the people in our society, if it is evil that simply means that our cultural institutions such as the family, the church, schools are so corrupted they are producing morally bankrupt, self-serving individuals who go on to occupy positions of power and leverage those positions exponentially to do evil.
John Locke the famous philosopher once noted that. "Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves have poisoned the fountain."
If our institutions are filled with evil people then we need to look at how those children were raised. Bad parenting, and bad instruction produces a bad generation, and everything including government suffers. So if logic prevailed, and we have a government made up of WE the people, and that government is doing evil, then we have to take a long hard look at ourselves do we not? Isn't it our culture in general that is evil? Isn't evil allowed to fester because every generation becomes more degenerate as time moves on? The problem is us, evil government is a symptom of moral decay and those espousing anti-government rhetoric as if removing government would be a solution to the problem need to first get to the root of the problem, before offering violent solutions. Their violence is a manifestation of their own propensity to do evil also. Anyone advocating anti-government, and violent revolution is not to be trusted. They simply don't understand the role of government, nor do they understand human nature, and as a result will themselves be horrible leaders.
Government is Not Evil, it is a Tool
When you hear people say that they hate our government, or that government is evil realize you are dealing with someone who is lazy. They are a lazy thinker and they are most notably lazy towards the solution. Government is a tool, it is a tool given to us by God toward our collective good. When government is filled with moral, upstanding, honest and righteous individuals then it leverages the collective blessings of heaven into our lives. When it is filled with wicked, selfish, vengeful, and greedy people it is leveraged to our collective hurt, but the point is it is a lever, a tool. At this point in our history the only people who know how to take hold of that lever and utilize it effectively are the wicked people of our society. They are unscrupulous, moneyed and connected to compromised power structures and can easily manipulate the levers of government toward their benefit and personal agendas.
Yet what we must realize is the system of government our founders fashioned for us is a tool that is better suited in the hands of WE the people. In fact there are more ways for the good people of the United States to lawfully take back power than there are ways for bad people to maintain their power strangle holds. Our founders placed power in the people, we have the opportunity to take local governments back, to elect constitutional sheriffs to office, we have jury nullification, right to secession, corporate boycotts, Article 5 conventions, petitions, political action groups, alternative media platforms, civil disobedience, etc. The list is endless as to how good people can get involved and start dismantling the power structures that exist in this country. The fact is most people are too scared, too lazy, too divisive and even too stupid to adequately utilize the tools and systems that the founding fathers have given us. It is time to wise up!
If anything is evil in of itself, it is the person who recognizes in-justice but sheepishly condemns instead of courageously confronts that evil head on by taking kinetic action against such a system. By kinetic action I don't mean take over federal buildings with guns, I mean utilize the power structures given to us in a lawful matter. Don't even announce your intent to the powers that be, just take over in the most professional, lawful and righteous way possible. Get elected, form those action groups, create new media that is solution orientated, educate people on the Principles of Liberty, write petitions, etc. It took almost 100 years for evil to get a firm grip on this country through subtly, chicanery, and secrecy. Good people can take hold of the tool of government in a flash if only more people would get involved. Numbers will always out-leverage the powers that be, but it is up to us to not forsake the God given institution of Government, but to utilize it as a means of leveraging the power elite out of power. That is the nature of tools, they give us a mechanical advantage. If we were to unify and utilize the tools of government against the wicked usurpers within the government there is no force on earth that could stop the combined might of the people when they operate in such a fashion. With God's help, a little organization and good old-fashion elbow grease we can out leverage the power elite without destroying the country, the citizenry and our constitutional republic with a hasty and ill prepared, bloody "revolution." Chances are if we go down that route, liberty will die with the first shot fired never to be recovered to the extent we have it today.
"Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens:" Exodus 18:21
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