I keep hearing about how it's "necessary" the state regulates, well, human behavior.
I reject this notion outright. I have no issue the government acting as a "concious" voice but to actively seek legislation against our personal will is immoral - to me. There's a wide gap between their good intentions and the unintended consequences of their actions. For if they're going to legislate laws they'd better be the best and the brightest. The state is only as good as the people who run it and these days I'm not impressed.
Years ago, my father-in-law, a pious man, told me something interesting. He had been part of various Churches most of his life starting as an Alter boy all the way to being President of his Church. A decent, smart and honest man, he was also pragmatic.
We talked about organized religion and theology many times. I asked him, one day (as opposed to many), what he thought about the state of the Catholic church and he replied, "Always remember, the Church is not run by God but man."
That sentence tells many truths and reflects many realities. He didn't have to delve further into it.
It can be transferred into the political organ known as the state. Man runs the state. I don't believe a politcian has my best interest at heart. As such, it is vulnerable to all the vices men of the Church face. Corruption, sex scandals and waste all take place within the state.
Why would anyone who questions the authority of the Church not do the same for the State?
The answer to your question is often this, men often question the authority of the Church (insert denomination here), not to reject the institutions failings, but to replace it with a religion of their own devising. If the State can be made to serve the needs that religion can not or will not serve, then the state becomes the new religion.
ReplyDeleteIn the case of the socialist movements of the Twentieth Century, namely fascism and Bolshevism, the state became the religion that ruled even more brutally (by way of body count that is)than the ones they were allowed to displace.
Here is the warning sign of bad government law and regulations. Human nature is largely fixed, anything that essentially attempts to ignore or alter that human nature is probably not a good long term article of legislation. It might serve a few for a time, but ends up doing a lot of harm, especially because the law will have to enforced with increasingly amounts of severity and expense to achieve compliance.
Sometimes we need to make this choice, but always with caution and a willingness not to become so invested in the law that we are unable to change or repeal it in the future.