Consent of the Governed
“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.” –Thomas Jefferson
Consent of the Governed
To secure our God-given rights, our founding fathers instituted our government, which derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. In order for any government to be just, it must have the consent of the governed. In other words, just powers come from the consent of the governed. In America, whenever “we the people’ vote we are giving our consent as to who is going to represent us in government. On the other hand, if the governed do not give their consent, the power is not just. The predictable results are injustice for the governed. “We the people” must make it our business to hold all elected and appointed officials in our representative form of government accountable to whom they were elected or appointed to represent.
The Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence gives definition to the concept of civil rights and a limited government with these words:
“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.”
The moral state of our nation is directly tied to these two sentences and two concepts in the Declaration. The clear language of the Declaration, “Nature’s God” and the “Supreme Judge of the world” gives human rights real meaning.
The Declaration of Independence was a charter of liberties not only for Americans, but for all mankind. The Declaration of Independence proclaimed liberty for Americans on principles that all men may claim. The principles are:
All men are created equal
All men are endowed with certain unalienable (unchallengeable or undeniable) rights
Legitimate government derives from consent of the governed
Government by Consent
The improved science of politics predisposed the business of government to be precise, definite, specific, and limited. The Constitution specified the purpose of government as protection of individual rights. It also prescribed the means by which government can be designed to achieve that end: government based upon the consent of the governed.
Limited Government
In the Declaration of Independence, our forefathers appealed to God’s laws as revealed in nature, and in the Bible as the foundation upon which everything else was built. The purpose of our government is to preserve and protect certain God-given rights for every citizen. Because the framers knew the sinfulness of human nature and did not trust it, they decided upon three principles of power. They are:
1. The people grant powers to a central government, with limited powers.
2. Three branches of government balance the distribution of power within the central government. This concept followed the pattern based upon Isaiah 33:22. “The Lord is our Judge, our lawgiver, and our King.” In other words, God is the ultimate government and He considers Himself to be Judge, Lawgiver, and King. Therefore, America needs a judiciary, a legislative, and an executive branch.
(1) Congress is the branch of government given responsibility to make the laws, not the Courts.
(2) The president executes these laws, not the Courts.
(3) The courts only interpret the law. They apply laws; they do not make them.
3. Various checks and balances by each branch upon the others would keep any one branch from gaining more power than the people had intended.
Ministers of God
The basic outline of the duties of government is found in Romans 13:4. Every civil ruler has an obligation to be “God’s minister” for the good and the right.
In Greek thought, the gods were in service of the state; in the Bible the state is in service of God. Government is not something man invented. Whenever people speak about the home, the church, or the government, they are speaking about the three institutions divinely ordained by God. Romans 13:1-7 teaches respect for authority in government.
As God’s Minister, the Ruler has Two Responsibilities:
1. He must do good.
2. He must punish evildoers.
If we discard the law, we are left to wander aimlessly, with no basis for justice, no means of recognizing it, and no principles with which to apply it. David Chilton reminds us that without God’s law, we have nothing but the “justice” of autonomous, rebellious humanism—which is to say, injustice. Conservatives and Libertarians are both fond of talking about “the rule of law”; but if it is not the rule of God’s law, it is nothing but anarchy, the rule of lawlessness.
Limited Task of Government
The Founding Fathers believed that government is necessary to counteract certain tendencies in human nature that cause us to want to violate the rights of others. Because all men are sinful in nature, all men need some form of government, the best form being self-government. Government exists to hold back evil, not to perfect man. The Founding Fathers thought this task was best left to families, churches, other forms of organizations, and to individuals themselves. Thus, within limits, each man should be able to pursue his own happiness as he defines it. Government exists not to define or guarantee happiness, but only to protect our rights to the pursuit of our own destiny or what makes us happy.
Government is to reward the externally obedient by protecting them from the externally disobedient. The role of government is not to make men virtuous. Biblically, the role of the state is to suppress external evil: murder, violence, theft, rape, and so forth. Its role is not to redistribute wealth, grant entitlements, nationalize industries, seize property, furnish medical care, or educate its citizen’s children.
Without Consent of the Governed
Here are just a few cases in point which historically demonstrate the abuse and misuse of power by elected and appointed government officials who have completely ignored the will of the American people. All three branches of our tri-part government are guilty of enacting laws and policies which are contrary to the consent of the people. These examples include: U.S. Presidents, the U.S. Congress, and State and Federal Courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court.
Cases of “Without Consent of the Governed”
I. The Sad History of Social Security
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program. FDR promised:
1. That participation in the SS program would be completely voluntary
2. That the participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual incomes into the program
3. That the money the participants elected to put into the
program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year
4. That the money the participants put into the independent
‘Trust Fund’ rather than into the general operating fund, and
therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security retirement program, and no other Government program
5. That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be
taxed as income
Many Americans have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month only to
find out that they are getting taxed on 85% of the money they paid to the Federal government to supposedly ‘Put Away’ in a secure trust fund.
The first year that Congress voted to remove funds from Social Security and put it into the General Fund for Congress to spend was 1958. It was passed by a democratically controlled Congress. The illogical logic at that time was that there was so much money in Social Security Fund that it would never run out and would be used up for the purpose it was intended or set aside for.
Then President Lyndon B. Johnson and the democratically controlled House and Senate took Social Security from the Independent ‘Trust Fund’ and put it into the General Fund so that Congress could spend it?
Then the Democratic Party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding.
Then the Democratic Party, with Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., casting the ‘tie-breaking’ deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the US, started taxing Social Security annuities.
It was President Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party that decided to start giving Annuity payments to immigrants.
Immigrants who moved into this country began to receive Social Security payments at age 65! The Democratic Party gave these payments to them, even though they never paid a dime into the system!
Then, after violating the original contract (FICA), the Democrats turn around and lie to the America people by telling them that the Republicans want to take your Social Security away! Bottom-line: The Social Security System—neither social nor secure.
And the worst part about all this is that uninformed citizens believe it and continue to vote for more of the same–Liberals and Leftists!
In 1983 the National Commission on Social Security Reform was created in response to the actuarial unsoundness of the system. The Social Security system today isn’t social and it isn’t secure. In fact, it’s broken and broke. There are no actual monies in the Social Security Fund to date. Social Security is the world’s largest (legal) chain letter. Each SS cardholder has a worthless piece of paper in their file with three letters on it: IOU. If Social Security is such a good deal for everyone, then why is it that so many people want out?
The biblical principle of civil justice is the antithesis of all socialism. Jesus said, “You will always have the poor among you, and you can help them whenever you want to.” The U.S. Federal bureaucracy extorts, as administration expenses, at least half of the Federal government’s total expenditures on welfare programs to pay the growing horde of middle-class bureaucrats who administer the government-mandated anti-poverty programs.
We cannot reject the idea of judicially binding biblical blue-prints in civil government and economics. Keynesianism and so-called Christian socialism are both unbiblical, making the problem of poverty all the worse. Leviticus 19:15 establishes a fundamental principle of justice: the impartial application of God’s legal standards to all men, irrespective of their wealth or status. The socialist proclaims the need for equality of economics results, not equality before the law.
James Maynard Keynes [Canes] was a defunct economist. What he advocated was totally wrong. In fact, the very opposite of what Keynes predicted has come to pass. Keynes argued that the government should adopt policies like deficit spending, progres-sive taxation, and the manipulation of interest rates. He was an advocate of price inflation as a remedy for unemployment. He reasoned that if there were more paper money and credit, it would be easier to employ more people—even though the actual purchasing power of the money will be lower. Laborers will accept lower real wages (fewer goods and services), so employers will hire them.
The socialist blames poverty on the capitalist system, not on scarcity, and not on the immoral behavior of the poor.
Lady Justice, or the Roman goddess Justitia, has, since the Renaissance, been portrayed as a blindfolded woman holding a sword in one hand and the scales of justice in the other. These are the symbols of biblical justice. The Bible requires equality before the law. Gary North states: The inescapable result of impartial civil justice is economic inequality. This is an affront to all defenders of the corporate State. They want to redistribute wealth by State compulsion, either through State ownership of the means of production (socialism) or through adjusting the incentives of the economy, even though legal ownership remains with private individuals or organizations.
There are factors that frequently bring people under the negative sanction of poverty, e.g., the universal curse as a result of the Fall, wickedness, and sloth. God is on the side of the righteous: the righteous poor, the righteous middle class, and the righteous rich. God is impartial. He is no respecter of persons. Those who are great achievers are given great rewards. Those who are average achievers are given average rewards. Those who are below-average achievers are given below-average rewards. You get what you deserve.
When it comes to our personal finances, do we really trust in God, or do we trust in the State? Gary DeMar states: A certain segment of the population is afraid of freedom, primarily the elderly. The side you take in the present Social Security debate says a lot about your view of economic and political freedom. While tyranny is often forced upon a population from the muzzle of a gun, it can also be imposed gradually on a savior-starved people. The his-tory of socialism and communism is the history of how people prefer slavery—in the name of security—over freedom.
Personalization Works
Gary DeMar tells the following true story: In 1981, employees of Galveston County, Texas, chose to leave SS for a private alternative. At first, not everyone was in favor of the innovative idea. The unions (naturally) opposed it. Employees deposited approximately the same amount of money in private accounts. To date, the funds have achieved an average 8.64 percent annual rate of return since inception. Many of these retirees are millionaires today, living off the interest, and are free to pass their estates on to their children. This can never happen under Social Security. My father used to say: “Welfare isn’t well and isn’t fair.”
Consider this scenario:
A man and his wife have paid into SS since the first day they went to work—forty-five years of SS payments. They both reach retirement age on the same day. On the way to the mailbox to pick up their first checks, they are killed by a drunk driver. Their estate gets nothing. The money is lost. No inheritance.
Remember: Words have meaning, ideas have consequences, and actions speak louder than bumper stickers.
It’s high time for “we the people” to take control of our own government. If we do not consent to what our elected and appointed officials, they must be removed from office for breech of contract.
