Human Sense: Pt. II – On The Governed, Section I

Those quickest to deny the existence of a higher power than government are usually the ones with the most to lose should it turn out that there is.

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Of the things that might be said about our species, the last surviving species of the genus Homo, what we know cannot be summed up in an introductory paragraph any more than could the sum total of what has been said about us across the span of History be jammed into a publication the size of the United States Code, which is currently "about 60,000 pages long and has 54 volumes."

Why our current governing system requires so many words to lay out the method(s) of restrictions and constraints on the freedoms and liberties of American citizens when the founders only needed 4,543 to describe how the government would operate deserves scrutiny a few pages hence, but as we begin, it is worthy of mention that we continue to survive, thrive, overcome adversity, and withstand the storms of governmental, social, and cultural pressure to restrict and constrain the exercise of our natural rights; despite the countless threats over the millennia to drive us into extinction, it would be instructive, and worthy of much closer inspection, to understand how it is that the inherent Free Will of our species never long-tolerates being forced to violate the first principles of Natural Law.

Having already determined that our species is arguably an enigmatic paradox, reminding readers that obedience to the fundamental tenets of Natural Law long predates being forced to take a knee at the feet of Kings, it is useful to consider our "earliest formations of communal faith and belief systems."

After many generations of observations on the world around them and the lessons they learned from the successes and failures of their experiences with each other and their natural environments, our ancestors developed their faith and beliefs based on what they could see with their own eyes, hear with their own ears, taste, touch, and smell with their own senses, and imagine with their own instinctive minds what they could not physically prove.

Historical records and artifacts dating as far back as 50,000 - 30,000 BCE suggest some sort of religious practices and rituals began to appear with the finding of burial sites containing personal items of the Dead. Some experts suggest this behavior might have been early signs of an evolving belief in life after death. We know that paganism, still practiced in a number of cultures around the world today, was actively taking place in Mesopotamia but began to change there with the arrival of Abraham (early 2nd millennium BCE).

For Billions of people on the planet, Abraham's presence in the historical chronology of faith and belief systems is important because he and his descendants have had an incredibly significant impact on Human Civilization. It is important, as we proceed with a closer look at this Global dynamic, to remind readers that there is no prerequisite here that anyone ascribe to, practice, or even disavow any particular faith, religion, or dogma. As a historical inquiry, the Abrahamic narrative is instructive for the extent to which his legacy, arguably, can be said to have built the first bridge between ruling Authority and communal Faith systems.

It is written that Abraham left Mesopotamia because God told him His plan for Abraham was to make him "the father of a great nation" and that God would give to Abraham a land (later identified as Canaan) described in the biblical book of Exodus as "land flowing with milk and honey" and is located in the southern Levant, which is the area that includes modern-day Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, and parts of Syria and Lebanon... Referred to in the Bible several times as the "Promised Land," these are the very same lands the Muslim and Hebrew people have been killing each other over for nearly 4,000 years and continue doing so in the present day.

It is said that as Abraham's progeny grew and multiplied, he established a mutually beneficial relationship with the Egyptian pharaoh. Some accounts suggest Abraham may have been one of Pharaoh's confidants. During the years prior to his death, Abraham's offspring (later to be known as the 12 tribes of Israel) were welcome ongoing visitors to Egypt; Pharaoh had no quarrel with the monotheism of Abraham's people, and Abraham's people had no quarrel with Egypt's paganism. They enjoyed a mutually beneficial and peaceful coexistence, which was the cornerstone of the relationship between them.

Generations after Abraham's death, a new Pharaoh would rise. Threatened by the power, strength, and influence of the 12 tribes, he ordered their enslavement, which lasted for centuries before the appearance of Moses and the eventual Exodus narrative. After the Israelites left Egypt, they developed a system of rules and laws, effectively establishing a theocracy detailed in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The fundamental principles of this system of governance were rooted in the obedience to the basic tenets of natural law and that rebuilt bridge between a ruling Authority and the communal faith system founded in the shared worship of their one true God.

Although specific dates are difficult to determine, a fair review of biblical accounts - with help from Britannica - tells us that it would only take three centuries for the Hebrew people to determine that they needed a King to rule over them. The reasons why are well enough described in the two books of Samuel (Old Testament), but it would not be much longer after this time that they were conquered and enslaved, and a new era of Kings would rise and force our species to once more, bend a knee at the feet of Kings that would wedge themselves between our communal Faith systems, and the freedom to exercise our natural rights.

The last of the Hebrew Kings eventually fell. The King that came after would likewise eventually fall. And the next King, the next, the next, and so on ad nauseam. From the perspective of the communal faith systems, forced to huddle in secrecy so they might continue their obedience to natural law without penalty or persecution, it would be the arrival of Jesus in the historical chronology of faith and belief systems that would attempt, once again, to repair that bridge between communal Faith and ruling Authority.

In his teachings, Jesus encouraged a renewal of faith and a redoubling of their commitment to not only serving God but loving and serving one another. He implored the Hebrew people to renew their adherence to the Ten Commandments handed down to them centuries earlier by Moses. His "Sermon on the Mount" and "Sermon on the Plains" together (found in the New Testament books of Luke and Matthew), arguably the most well-known of his sermons, acknowledged the suffering of the people under the crippling rule of men while encouraging the faithful to find solace in one another.

He understood that Kings would come and go and that many of these would test their faith, reminding them that the laws of God and nature could never be taken from them by Kings, no matter how many were written attempting to do so, effectively imploring them to accept what they could not change (be pragmatic) while embracing what had been given to them by God, making a finer point on this when asked by the Pharisees about paying taxes, He said, "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s."

The ancient Greek philosophers, who developed theories and concepts that would eventually come to be known as Natural Law, had already been inquiring about the dynamics between the masses and the ruling authority centuries before Jesus's life. After his death, influenced by the introduction of Christian theology, a whole new generation of philosophers began similar inquiries into these same dynamics. Names such as St. Paul ) one of Jesus'Apostles), St. Augustine of Hippo, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Hugo Grotius, Thomas Aquinas, and even the likes of Edmond Burke and Thomas Paine continued that work through the lens of Christianity.

Even as these works and the countless others that have been done over more than two and a half millennia contain disagreements or contradictions, several consistently agreed-upon fundamental truths are worth considering about what they have in common.

It is said that Thomas Aquinas believed the first principle of natural law was that "good is to be done and evil avoided" and that humans discover this imperative in their consciences as if it were written there by God. Morality and justice were also ordained by God, and survival and procreation are core human values. The work of Darwin affirmed the human imperatives of survival and reproduction six centuries later, but these are not the only fundamental principles of natural law, especially considering the continuing evolution of the relationship between humankind and the natural world when considered in the context of the effects of governing systems on that relationship.

It can be fairly observed that despite the concepts of Natural Law being uniquely separate from those of Human Nature, the relationship between them is, at the very least, symbiotic; where the latter derives its understanding of its own existence from the former, the former cannot realize any meaning or purpose for its own existence without the existence of the latter.

Aquinas, along with all of the faith-based philosophers on this dynamic, agrees that nature, including humankind, comes from God and argues that there is a clear distinction between Divine Law (Natural Law) and Positive Law (Laws of Men/Legislatures).

An official definition of Natural Law suggests that it is a "system of right or justice held to be common to all humans and derived from nature rather than from the rules of society."

Something is missing, however, from this statement that must be included in this discussion. Along with natural law, which applies equally to all of us, it is important to recognize that there is also the matter of Natural rights, which is defined as follows: "Natural Rights are rights that people are inherently born with, possibly from nature or God. These rights are universal and inalienable (remember that word), meaning they are not dependent on the beliefs, customs, or laws of any specific government or culture and cannot be repealed or restricted by human laws.

This suggests that each of us, from the first day we stood upright in Africa 300,000 years ago, is born with the equal right to breathe, to sustain ourselves, to reproduce, to live free, self-determinate lives, to defend ourselves, to express ourselves, and to live in harmony with our natural environment. It also means that we are born with the equal right to be sovereign individuals, enjoy bodily autonomy, and possess the right to be free to live in peace with one another and the world around us. Notably, these rights are the same for the wealthy as they are for the impoverished, and it was only after the rise of Kings that some proclaimed the right to be more equal than any of the rest of us. From that day to this, the endless struggle between the governing and the governed continues to grow and evolve.

The first King of England, Athelstan, rose to power in the early 900s AD. Roughly three centuries later, King John put his seal on the Magna Carta (a charter of rights to address grievances between the King and a group of rebel barons), which effectively came to be considered England's Constitution. In 1649, General Oliver Cromwell (a long-time advocate of the execution of Charles I) overthrew the English monarch, disbanded Parliament, and established what was known as a protectorate over which he ruled until his death roughly four years later.

Cromwell's arrival in the chronology of developing communal Faith systems is oddly out of place, especially considering the violent upheavals taking place amongst various factions of the ruling class)es) of the mid-1600s.Although Cromwell was more or less a revolutionary who became effectively a military dictator, unlike most military dictators, he actually had a plan to restore Parliament to its former glory as a truly representative voice of the people. Even if his efforts did not fully restore that bridge between communal Faith systems and the British ruling Authority, it is fair to suggest that he set that process in motion.

Forty years after that Revolution against the King of England, the post-Revolution English Parliament approved what stands today (although continuously modified over the centuries) as The English Bill of Rights.

A review of that document makes clear that the British Parliament had moved beyond the will of Cromwell, restructuring the Monarchy while managing to assign itself power over the King and relegating the throne to little more than a conferee ... a secondary role... in managing the affairs of the British people. Within approximately seven decades, King George sitting on the throne, British Parliament would begin its final downward spiral into "absolute despotism".

Between the Stamp Act (despite its subsequent repeal), the Townsend Act, British shots being fired on colonists in Boston - killing five - followed not long after by defiance against England at the well-known Boston Tea Party event, battles at Lexington and Concord drew a line in the sand over which the colonists refused to cross.

It is well enough known that America's founding fathers declared independence from England on July 4th, 1776. Pieces of the text of that document have been quoted countless times over the centuries, the most popular of which is the part about throwing off "such Government," but there is rarely much mentioned of the extent to which they allude to Natural Law, Natural Rights, Human equality, or the existence of a higher power than government - God.

At just over 1300 words, it is easy enough to spend a few minutes reading from beginning to end. There were five authors who contributed to the text (John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston), and not all of them were known to be deeply religious. They were, however, collectively, great students of History and philosophy, and it has been written that many of them leaned heavily on John Locke and Cicero for guidance in the drafting of the Declaration.

A decent argument can be made that it was Cromwell who ultimately began setting the foundation of a bridge between the days of the old-school despotic Kings and the ancestors of the new King that would follow and ultimately be overthrown by the ancestors of our founding fathers. At the very least, he certainly deserves an honorable mention for his role in giving birth to the idea that men could break free of the chains of bondage and aspire to a life of freedom and self-determination. It would not come easy, nor would it be without blood and sacrifice.

In contrast with the Cromwell narrative, de-throning Kings until he was satisfied that the right one was in place, consider that when George Washington was offered the presidency after the ratification of the US Constitution, he had already turned down the offer of being made King. It seems many of his political followers, like England, never quite understood the full gravity of the Constitution. Throughout history, humankind's thirst for Kings is quite well-known and runs deep, but Washington did posterity a great service by declining to quench it.

Thus did America's Founders finally cross Cromwell's Bridge and set it alight upon reaching the American Shore. Yet, for all the sacrifice of blood and treasure that bought freedom, a nation of, by, and for the people, and a long-awaited reaffirmation of the concepts of life, Liberty, self-determination, acknowledgment of the god-given rights, and obedience to fundamental tenets of Natural Law, the strength of the foundation of the newly constructed American Bridge would not go untested for very long.

In the earliest days of the new American Nation, invigorated by victory in the war against Britain, the American people had to set about the business of figuring out how to best put to use their newfound freedom. Much the same as it was in early Mesopotamia, or the earliest days of Abraham in Canaan, or Moses centuries later, or even the first pilgrims landing in Massachusetts in 1620, in their own Promise Land of sorts, the newborn American Nation had to attend to the more mundane tasks of further securing the things that would be needed to sustain that handshake between the Governing and the Governed, and the guiding principles for that process - effectively the American Citizen Users' Guide - was the contents of the Constitution itself.

The United States Constitution is comprised of seven articles, several of which are divided into sections, and lists each of the 27 Amendments to the original document. The first 10 of these, known as the Bill of Rights, were considered crucial in the negotiations that led up to the document being signed and ultimately ratified by a majority of the"some several States."

As mentioned earlier, the Constitution serves as a symbolic handshake, accepted by both sides as the sole arbiter of any dispute between the Governing and the Governed; the latter freely consenting to abide by the laws the former would establish over time, and the former freely consenting to be replaced in their office should they fail to keep their end of the bargain. Even as modern-day detractors continue to argue otherwise, it is well enough agreed that the Bill of Rights was designed to enshrine the inalienable rights of the people and serve as an affirmation that these rights are derived from Natural Law and Natural Rights that come from a higher power than Government.

Another word for this "handshake" between the Governing and the Governed in the young American Nation is a "Covenant," and Covenants have existed since there were humans. In the biblical narrative of Abraham, it is written that God made a covenant with him and, a renewed one in the Moses narrative, and one last time, through Jesus, between God and all of Humankind. In the Millennia, since those biblical narratives, every manner and form of Covenant imaginable has been tried, and with a microscopically small number of exceptions, they have all eventually been broken.

There are always great excuses, an overabundance of blaming others, and finger-pointing, but the only unbroken (and unbreakable) Covenant that this Author can think of is the one between our species and Natural law; deceit may be hardwired into our species, but Natural Law never deceives.

Author and Theologian OS Guinness, in a presentation called “The Greatest Enemy of Freedom is Freedom — Exodus and the Paradox of Freedom,” offers stunning insights into human nature and the inherently fallible constructs of relationships we establish between each other and, collectively, with the governing systems and bodies we allow ourselves to be subjected to.

The word he uses to describe these systems of human interaction is “Covenantalism,” and he suggests that there are practically limitless numbers and forms of covenants all around us in our everyday lives. With this observation from Guinness, It is reasonable to assert that the governmental Covenant struck in America between the founding Fathers and “we, The People” is one uniquely grounded in the idea that, through mutual guarded trust, the people would consent to be governed so long as the system of governance served the people.

Striking in his presentation is Guinness's historical review of covenants between societies and Kings and between individual members of society with each other, and his emphasis on the period between the 1950s and the present day is instructive and worthy of closer inspection.

For context, Guinness observed that "Exodus is the master story of Western freedom, certainly in the English-speaking world. Exodus is the story behind the English Revolution and the American Revolution but not the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, or the Chinese Revolution.

They are much closer to Frederick Nietzsche, who, in his book"On the Genealogy of Morality," calls Exodus the slave revolt in morality, and he wants to overcome the power of the herd and replace it with the power of the hero." The important takeaway from this proposition, proven consistently throughout the history of humankind, is that relying on external forces (government) for personal safety, security, and survival is inherently flawed and ultimately self-destructive. That humankind, throughout its existence, consistently cycles itself through the innate desire for freedom and the desperate cries for leadership exemplifies the paradoxical nature of our species and, likewise, explains the continued dynastic rise and fall of societies throughout our history.

Guinness provides concise explanations for this dynamic, saying that there are "Three types of government - monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. Each one has an ideal form and a corrupt form: Monarchy, the rule of one, corrupted into tyranny. Aristocracy, the rule of the excellent few, corrupted into an oligarchy. Democracy, the rule of the people... Of the many... Corrupted into mob rule." He goes on to suggest that, over the last 50 years, the focus has shifted more toward an emphasis on society rather than government, and a different set of three dynamics have evolved and begun to spread.

Paraphrasing here..."The first is organic society, linked together by blood and kinship, such as a Scottish Clan or African tribe. The second and most powerful is the hierarchical society, linked by force and conquest, such as a kingdom or Empire. The third type is covenantal, linked by a freely chosen binding agreement between the people."

Offering an additional layer of complexity, he suggests that there are yet another three societal considerations. First, covenant is a matter of freely chosen consent. Second, it is a morally binding pledge. Third and most important, it is a reciprocal responsibility of all for all, implicitly the idea of loving your neighbor as yourself.

Even the most casual observers of governing systems around the world can see that much of what Guinness tells us, generally, about the corrupted equivalents of Covenantalism can be seen everywhere we look. Monarchies have increasingly been corrupted into tyrannies, Aristocracies have been increasingly corrupted into Oligarchies, and Democracies have overwhelmingly been completely overthrown by Mob rule. I suggest that in the case of the American Nation (technically a Federal Constitutional Republic, routinely mischaracterized as a Democracy), our transition to this current"chaos by design" system of governance began, as Guinness pointed out, as far back as the 1950s, after the world victory in the so-called "war to end all wars" which clearly turned out to have been premature to suggest.

For as much as the discussion up to this point has been primarily directed toward the changing dynamic between the Governing and the Governed, which has devolved in recent decades, this doesn't tell the whole story about the state of affairs in America today. The nature of the relationship amongst and between American citizens (the Governed) and the extent to which the dynamics of that relationship have deteriorated in recent years requires further study.

Much of the blame for the erosion and decay of our society, culture, and overall body politic can be put at the feet of willful ignorance of History, a general disdain and disregard of the fundamental tenets of Natural Law and Natural Rights, and "the impulses of rage, resentment, jealousy, avarice, and of other irregular and violent propensities."

Having already suggested that, between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (especially the Bill of Rights), America's Founders rebuilt that bridge once more between the Governing and the Governed. Remember, as well, that this euphemistic Bridge connects Communal Faith systems with ruling Authorities, each intending to peacefully coexist with the other in a symbiotic relationship between those consenting to be governed by those freely selected to Govern. Further, enshrined in the very first amendment was the promise that"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

A fair argument can be made that, in the earliest days of the American Nation, our communal faith systems were essentially uncomplicated; there were Christians and agnostics, a small number of alternate religious practitioners, and collections of Indigenous tribes. With the promise of the first part of the First Amendment - "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" - the individual members of society were given the promise that the government would leave the people to work out any differences between themselves.

To be sure, there were many conflicts in the early days, but the American population was under 3 million at that time, and the difficulties were local and far removed from the national body politic. In today's America, with a population rapidly nearing 400 million, the dynamic between communal Faith systems, just in the sheer number of different ones there are in our society and culture, has grown increasingly hostile and adversarial. It is difficult enough to contend with the tattering edges of our social fabric caused by hostilities between communal faith systems, but the notion that some of these factions are engaging the Governing, seeking assistance in shutting down other communal faith systems with which they disagree, is having some amount of success. This is in direct conflict with the promise in our Constitution, which guaranteed that communal faith systems were off limits to Congressional interference.