It has been awhile since I have posted an article in this series, but I have not forgotten it, and will, from time to time, make relevant additions.
Edmund Burke was not one of America's Founding Fathers, but he could have been. He was an English philosopher/politician who lived during the era of our Founders, authoring several books, including a brilliant one entitled Reflections on the Revolution in France. In this 1790 book, written a year after the French Revolution broke out, Burke correctly predicted the course of that revolution. For example, he accurately forecast the assassination of the king, the brutal Reign of Terror, the rise of dictatorship, and other significant events of the French Revolution. Burke could make these accurate predictions because he knew history, he knew men, and he knew what men would do without God directing them, which is the course the French Revolution took.
But, in this essay, I want to provide a quote from Burke, also prophetic, regarding liberty and the necessary elements of it. I will quote Burke, then make some germane comments on his thoughts.
"What is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without restraint.
Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion as they are disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good in preference to the flattery of knaves.
Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.
It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters."
What Burke is saying, of course, is that freedom must have limitations. "Freedom" does not mean that people can do anything they want. Freedom ultimately comes from God; everything does, and thus, men, to have true liberty, must respect God and His eternal decrees. Otherwise, they will not only violate the freedoms of others, but also destroy themselves by not curbing their own passions and desires. Let's look a little more closely as some of the things Burke said.
"What is liberty without wisdom and without virtue?..." Freedom without wisdom--which comes from God and a knowledge of history--and without a virtuous people....is what?
''...the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without restraint." Again, freedom does not mean we can do anything we want to do. This should be self-evident; we cannot allow murderers and rapists to have the "freedom" to murder and rape; such would obviously violate the freedom of others. Thus, there must be some restrictions put on liberty. Otherwise, people will end up committing all kinds of foolishness ("folly"), wickedness ("vice"), and incomparable stupidity because they put no restraints on what they think, either ("madness"). There must be some boundaries to freedom somewhere! Now, the question is, who draws those boundaries? Are we going to let men do it? Given the violent, corrupt, vile, tyrannical history of humanity, who would be foolish enough to say that man has the wisdom and good judgment to inerrantly direct his own steps? Have we indeed learned nothing from history? For if the pages of the past teach us anything, it is that man, left to himself, will descend into cruelty, barbarity, and every imaginable villainy and treachery. No, since God is the Author of all, the Eternal Creator of man, it is essential, for true human freedom, that we let Him put the restraints on that liberty. For pure wisdom and pure virtue are taught from above. And, yea, when we look at America today, an America that has rejected its god-fearing foundations, a "freedom" without God--we see...what? "Folly, vice, and madness, without restraint."
"Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their appetites..." Men can be "free" only if they restrain themselves. Because, "Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere." Too much "freedom" is anarchy, not civilization. If people are allowed to do anything they want, then obviously civilization ceases, and barbarism results. And, again, the crucial question is, from whence should come the limits upon freedom? Well, "the less of it there is within"--the less people restrain themselves--"the more there must be without"--if people don't restrain themselves, government will step in and do it for them. (Indeed, history abundantly teaches that government is more than happy to do so.) Because there must be order in society for civilization to exist, men can either do the right thing from within--virtue--or they will be forced to do it by government--tyranny. And, Burke was right--"It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things"--a neat phrase for the eternal Will of God--"that men of intemperate minds (i.e., those who refuse to restrain themselves) cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters." Since they refuse to live virtuously on their own, then some outside entity--and it can only be government--will step in and force them to do it. And, when people are forced to do something they would not do of their voluntary will, that's not freedom. Freedom and individual virtue go hand-in-hand, they are indispensable partners. Edmund Burke, and America's Founding Fathers, understood that. Barack Obama, and the modern leftist elite, do, too. But, because these leftists love power and control in their own hands, true freedom, based upon God's will, is the last thing they want. They want as much immorality--ungodly behavior--as possible, because immorality will ultimately demand government control.
The truly sad thing is, when the heavy hand of government steps in, as it must when people refuse to control themselves, then that government tyrannizes the bad and the good. Those who do live virtuously, who don't need government to control them, are punished and tyrannized because of the actions of the decadent miscreants who refuse to submit to the dictates of virtue on their own. Crying out for "freedom", these immoral degenerates create oppression for all. People want the "freedom" to commit fornication; but then they have babies out of wedlock, get on welfare, and decent, virtuous people are forced, by government, to pay taxes to support these depraved activities. Homosexuals want the "freedom" to practice their lewd, shameful behavior, but they spread their horrible diseases, and taxpayers are required to pay for them. Businessmen who buy politicians--crony capitalism--usually produce inferior products at unreasonable prices, or, as in the case of Solyndra, goods that the people don't want in the first place. So, once again, it is the virtuous who are hurt by having higher taxes extracted from them or having inferior products shoved upon them by a virtually uncontrollable despotism. When God's Will is ignored, everybody suffers. And even when fornicators or homosexuals escape any immediate consequences of their immoral actions, they create in themselves a mindset of rebellion against God--and a seamless passion that will eventually "forge their fetters." There is no escape from God.
As I have written many times in my blogs, it is of no surprise to anyone who knows history and the revealed will of God (the Bible)--and that number is very, very small--that, the farther America has gotten away from God and His Word, the larger and more intrusive government has become. The less people have controlled themselves, the more the outside force has had to intervene and do it. It is exactly what Edmund Burke said over 200 years ago. It is exactly what we should expect, given "the eternal constitution of things"--the will of God--and the lessons of history that such wisdom teaches. And men today have no excuse for not knowing these lessons.