Liberty vs Safety

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.  Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees. Euripides (484-408 bc)

Today Americans are locked in a desperate struggle which rivals—with regard to its potential outcome—our revolutionary beginnings in significance and consequences. Future life in America, whether it is to be lived under the tyranny of despotism or in personal liberty as ordained and granted by God, is going to depend on whether our love of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness exceeds our lust for “guaranteed” security and our concession to malevolent overseers for our well-being in general. Those who are willing to surrender their personal liberties for what in essence is a feigned security, will discover their misguided decision leads to abject slavery. The initial concession of one’s liberty—regardless of how insignificant it may appear—sets in motion a continuum of surrendered freedoms resulting in multi-dimensional servitude.

The only place one can entertain compromise with respect to personal liberties is in one’s interaction with other individuals. There are times when we, in Christian deference, would gladly concede our personal rights out of love and thoughtfulness to another person(s). However, never do we risk compromise of personal freedoms with government. Let’s be clear and honest about the place of government in our individual lives according to the precepts and intentions of our founders. The principal purpose of government is to protect the God ordained rights of the governed for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It was never intended to become the nanny state creating the perverse welfare dependence we see today, and it was never conceived to be the finite regulator of every minutia of individual lives. Our founders knew perfectly how well personal liberty was connected to and dependent on personal responsibility and moral restraint.

The erosion of freedoms in America has its origin in the abdication of personal responsibility for individual initiative, hope, aspiration and well-being. When we began to look to others as being responsible for our welfare, we started down the slippery and precipitous slope to despotic tyranny. In the end, if we do lose all our freedom, we will have to admit that no one took it from us. We would have to admit that we willingly gave it up because we esteemed security more than liberty.  

America began as a people committed to throw off despotic tyranny as personified in King George III of England. At the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention of 1778, the following conversation involving Benjamin Franklin was recorded by Maryland delegate Dr. James McHenry:

Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?

A Republic, if you can keep it.

The political philosophy of our founding fathers was rooted in the belief and necessity of personal self-governance. America was founded as a Republic, not a democracy. A Republic is characterized as government in which supreme power is vested in the citizenry, not in the elected officials. A democracy could be characterized as two wolves and a sheep deciding on what to have for dinner. The entire experiment in self-governance was predicated totally on the willingness of the citizens to faithfully exercise personal responsibility over their own lives. This political philosophy readily acknowledged that man’s rights came from God, not the state, and therefore encouraged individuals to aspire to a moral excellence in their respective conduct. Consider the following excerpt from our Declaration of Independence:

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.

Regarding this concept, John Adams had this to say:

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

If a government or any other entity is empowered, as through the concession of the people, to grant rights to the people, it is therefore also capable, and most likely, to abridge or rescind those same rights. There is a most unfortunate phenomenon wherein acquired power tends to corrupt. A well known observation of 19^th century historian Lord Acton put it this way:

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.

This is precisely why we the people must step up responsibly and choose to govern ourselves humbly in the sight of God. Personal liberty is something all Christians should absolutely cherish. It is part of the Lord’s inheritance for us, part of which Christ died to give us. The authenticity of our personal surrender to Christ is birthed from this matrix of freedom. Loving God and yielding our lives to him is a choice. The Apostle Paul gave the following encouragement:

Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.  (Gal 5:1, 13 NKJV)

The context of this passage pertains to the apostle’s concern over new believers falling to the wiles of Judaizers and the risk of adopting Jewish customs and traditions thus marginalizing their faith in Christ. However, it is also obvious from this verse that as a general principle we should embrace and celebrate the freedom Christ provided for us.  God’s intention is that we walk out the liberty given us in Christ to release and further His Kingdom on earth by living powerfully out of the life of Christ through the principle of the cross. We are set at liberty in Christ that we may choose to do the will of God.

The issue, but not the cause, before us today that is highlighting this eternal conflagration pitting liberty against safety, is the Covid-19 pandemic. This virus simply provided a platform, a springboard from which the powers that be could intensify and accelerate their already established and ongoing agenda for the New World Order. What we are presently experiencing in this regard is the temporal manifestation of the war taking place in the heavenlies. Those persons promoting a one world government, religion, monetary system, etc. are virtually yielding themselves as servants of Satan and his minions. This battle in the heavenlies is over whose kingdom will ultimately reign on earth. The Bible tells us that Satan is the god of this present world and all the evil, hatred, abuse and destruction we see about us is what defines his kingdom.

The gradual and surreptitious usurpation of personal liberties in America has literally been taking place since our founding. It is sponsored by Satan—the arch master enslaver from the beginning—whose desire to steal, kill and destroy is carried out by self-aggrandizing persons bent on accumulating power, wealth and fame. Through the means of government these stateless persons pursue their ends by seeking to divest the Constitution of its original intent of prospering a morale people through self-government and personal responsibility. By creating the myth that government oversight equates to personal security these usurpers have deluded generations of Americans into forfeiting myriads of personal liberties.     

Now that our Constitution has been literally shredded and emaciated, how much more secure are we? Is the world really a safer place? Are we freer today from global conflicts and wars? Are our cities and communities more secure and free from crime than previous generations? The truth be told, we have forfeited our Bill of Rights for a bill of goods. Through the orchestrated and funded activities of Antifa and Black Lives Matter we are seeing virtual chaos and dystopia in our cities. The pervasiveness and depth of corruption throughout all levels of government in our nation today literally challenges the credulity of most thinking Americans. We are watching the attempt to erase history through the destruction of statues and altering of names. Main stream media has long ago forsaken honest journalism and become the propaganda arm of New World Order oligarchs.

The truth is that pursuing absolute security as a noble goal is like trying to hit a moving target. Of course it is prudent and right to take logical precautionary measures in establishing one’s safety in all matters. I don’t need the government to tell me I must wear a seatbelt in my vehicle; I find that a reasonable and prudent action to take on my own. However, regardless of what efforts toward safety that I may take, there are always inevitabilities in life which no amount of pre-thought or preparation could thwart. I cannot preplan for the inerrant behavior or actions of others I may encounter in life or totally ward off the consequences of natural disasters.

God never promised us a smooth road through life or that he would remove all the harmful and distasteful things from our lives. His promise, given our surrender and commitment to him, is to go through everything with us sustaining us and our faith in him and conforming us more into his image through the trials and tragedies of life. Given our permission, God will use all of life’s exigencies to prepare us to rule and reign with him in his kingdom.  It is liberty that allows us to freely respond in a scriptural manner to all that life serves up. It is through personal liberty that our personal relationship with Christ is truly validated. Loving God, serving God, yielding to God are all personal attestations issuing from the matrix of personal freedom.

The 18^th Century statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke said it very simply:

People never give up their liberties but under some delusion.  

It is my prayer that we withstand the temptation to adopt the false illusion of security while forfeiting our precious liberties in Christ. May we all, having done all, stand fast in the liberty by which Christ has made us free.