The Ungovernable Will Not Be Governed

The founding fathers of the United States established a government dependent on self-government.  They did not design a government that could govern the ungovernable.  This is why you can't outsource democracy, or more accurately, a republic.  You can send the United States Constitution to Afghanistan, Iraq, or Russia and not get what we have in America.  The American Revolution and the French Revolution differed in that one of them was preceded by a Great Awakening.  So, the "key" isn't the Constitution, but the people.  The constitutional system of government is good, but it can't reign in people who don't want government.

The crime in my county is so high, so rampant, that we know our law enforcement can't enforce.  I already know that there is a certain amount of abuse or discomfort I'm going to live in and through every day, just to live in California.  I could say that I hope it will change, but I don't expect it.  My hope is in the Lord, not in government or this earth.  I know I can't even change it, even if I wanted to, because I can't make people change. I can try to see it change, and I want that, but I know that the actual program for change is "thy kingdom come," which is a major reason I pray that.

Some people believe that government is the solution to most problems.  A drunk driver hits a bus and kills a dozen children and they want new bus legislation.  We then live under that legislation.  More people die and faster with the added burden of regulation.  It leads to a more difficult life with increasing poverty.

John Adams wrote:

Public virtue cannot exist in a Nation without private Virtue, and public Virtue is the only Foundation of Republics.

Benjamin Franklin wrote:

Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.

Samuel Adams wrote:

Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue.

George Washington said:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.

At his first inaugural, Thomas Jefferson said:

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

He said to a group of Philadelphia citizens in 1809:

[The] voluntary support of laws, formed by persons of their own choice, distinguishes peculiarly the minds capable of self-government. The contrary spirit is anarchy, which of necessity produces despotism.

The answer to better government is not more government, but a self-governing people.  Government itself cannot make its people more virtuous, a more moral people.  However, government will fail without this virtue and morality.

We can think about how we could have or would have stopped Stephen Paddock from shooting over 500 people and killing 59 of them, but we need to start with self-government.  I know government isn't stopping people in California, where government really, really believes in more laws, more regulation, and more intervening government.  We're not more safe here with this government.  It still feels very insecure, more than it does in other places in the United States.

How can the ungovernable become governable?  There really is one way and it doesn't start with the outside, but with the inside.  Men need conversion and that only occurs through the gospel.  If we really care, and we want things to change, we've got to invest in preaching the gospel all the time and all over the place.  That does not guarantee that things will change, but it is the only possibility of the change necessary to see this change.