Fear of freedom leads us to vote for more government
The Jewish people gave the world the ethic of freedom some 3500 years ago. God said to all present and future:
All people are born with equal intrinsic value, all life is sacred and most importantly and most frightening – we have free-will.
God told us what is good and what is evil
God gave us the blessing and the curse; life and death; choose life. Choose Good over Evil.
Unheard of until that moment. It was the first time people were told they had the right to their own views and the responsibility to make decisions. They were no longer under the control of a supreme leader. This was the first time in history that people were given freedom: and it is frightening. And, too often, fear leads to submission. Today, that submission is to governments in so-called freedom-loving countries in the West.
On the sixth day, God created man and woman: not from an utterance, not from a word, but from His hands and His breath; we are created in His image, capable of reason, moral thinking, and free will. He created Adam and Eve, the first children, the first of His children. And He placed them in the lush Garden of Eden. And He told them to eat and enjoy all that was before them in the Garden of Eden, all but the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. That tree—right there in the middle of the garden. That sensual tree with luscious fruit. That tree. Don’t eat from that tree.
But, like all children, the admonishment not to eat piqued their curiosity, their childishness, and their innocence. How could they not try the fruit? It’s not as if it were hidden in a corner of the garden behind a fence. It was right there. In front of them. So easy to access. So forbidden. It is too much to bear. And the first children that ate of the fruit now exist in all of us, as does the first breath…
We naturally bemoan the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. Had they not disobeyed God’s commandment not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, we would all be living in paradise. And the story of the human journey would have ended. But they chose to eat of the fruit and condemned—or gifted—all of us with free will.
In America, the teachings of God and the Hebrew Bible are firmly rooted in their Constitution.
The Founding Fathers of America, particularly Washington, Madison and Adams, praised the teachings of the Hebrew Bible and understood the deep connection between ethical monotheism and freedom and chose to embed the Constitution in the Jewish ethic from the Hebrew Bible. I know many Christians have trouble with that. But shouldn’t. Jesus was a Jew and shared the ethic which Paul later spread around the Middle East.
For decades we, in the West, have slowly but surely given our God given rights to government – for our own good so they say! Government will take care of us. If you don’t work, government will take care of you, too. Housing, educations health care, pension. Ahhh, being taken care of – like in the Garden, or in the womb. Sounds so lovely. No need to fear failure or decision-making.
Fear leads to submission and giving up free-will, which is endemic to Western Culture and no other. Covid proved with enough fear the vast majority of people in the West will bend the knee to mommy and daddy – the government. And, I suggest, since Covid, more and more people have given up on free-will.
Canadian PM, Mark Carney, has shared his views on “free-will.” In order to tame the climate beast – which he sees as the ultimate existential crisis, we must submit to “rigid controls on personal freedom(emphasis mine), industry and corporate funding.” This, he claims, is necessary because “Western society [is] morally rotten and… corrupted by capitalism.” This is the talk of someone who knows people want to be told what to do – like when they were children.
The take-over by government is usually done slowly. We don’t see it coming until it is too late.
J.B Shurk wrote:
Respect for personal freedom did serve as an effective guardrail that kept Western governments from careening toward totalitarianism, too. Most Westerners receive some kind of government welfare in the form of subsidies, entitlements, healthcare, or retirement income. An ever-increasing share of the Western population depends almost entirely upon the State(emphasis mine).
And this is intentional. The government plays on fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of living, of decision making, of growing up. Look back over time. Pay attention as government infiltrated into our personal lives with promises of making life easier. Sure. That’s how we acquiesced to government healthcare, and now in Canada, dental care and all the other care that was provided by our parents. And the care will rot as time goes by and the services will be reduced because of lack of money or people.
In 2020 Canada enacted the Poverty Reduction Act.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had called it a milestone.
“We have delivered in lifting hundreds of thousands of Canadians out of poverty. We are continuing to demonstrate leadership.”
Canada’s national poverty rate rose again in 2023, hitting 10.2 percent and marking the fourth consecutive year of increases. Why is that?
We have also allowed government, from Federal to local, to totally infiltrate education; not just fund it. Parents have been told they do not have control over what government will teach their children. Look where we are.
We must get over our fears and always remember that God gave us free-will – as a right and an obligation.
He told us 365 times in the Bible: do not fear, for a reason.
The time has come to throw off the shackles of “parental” government and honour God by implementing our God-given free-will.
“A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers.” — Friedrich Hayek
From the Ethics of the Fathers: “Rabbi Tarfon used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it.”
Diane Weber Bederman
