One of the things that has consumed me in my adult life is the role of Government, and after being involved in a conversation with an intriguing group of people last week, I remembered Robert Leferve's powerful little book, The Nature Of Man And His Government.
"Robert LeFevre (1911–1986) ran the Freedom School and Rampart College, founded in 1957. He had a legendary impact on a whole generation of libertarians."
But I digress.
Two prominent themes in any discussion about government is, we need better people to elect to Parliament, and/or we need a different system.
LeFevre, put it this way in his opening paragraphs of chapter 9.
"GOVERNMENT'S ability to bite the hand that feeds it has long been mourned by its principal progenitors. Simple human beings for at least six thousand years have learned to put their faith in governmental organization only to find, after the passage of a few years, that the agency they trusted has turned to rend them in their tracks."
"They have long marveled at this phenomenon. And their wonder, during the unfolding of man's story, has taken two principal avenues toward a solution."
"They have concluded that the particular men selected to head up and run a particular government have been evil. Hence, they have reasoned, if they can find better men, they will have nothing to fear."
"They have concluded that the particular form of governments they have devised has lacked certain safeguards. They have reasoned that if the government could have been organized along different lines, they would have escaped the evil their government was busily engaged in inflicting on them."
As LeFevre points out, these questions have been asked for thousands of years and the results are the same with each change of people and/or systems.
Government is basically a tool of force, so why should we not expect that force to be used against us at some point?
But what is a peaceful solution? Read Robert Leferve's powerful little book to find out his solution here (pdf)…
