It is Tuesday, the 5th of March, AD 2024. A beautiful day… well, at least some places. And even if it is snowing and the wind is blowing, it is a nice day: we need the moisture!

We live in a land once filled with promise, with hope. The first nations established based on migrating relatively peacefully to a new and less crowded land, which then joined into a compact between those who wished to be part of what was then a very odd experiment. We freely admit that there were problems with how that was done (both the settlement part and the joining together), but overall it was unique in human history, as far as we know.

And for many years, it kind of worked. Oh, we had and have really bad problems. But overall, even despised minorities still enjoyed many more liberties and much more freedom than in other places. (No, we are not making apologies for slavery or for hatred and racism, whether against AmerInd or black or Asian or Irish! Just pointing out that there was a lot of good and some bad.)

But we got spoiled. And lazy. And failed to be diligent, to be vigilant enough.

So how, here in 2024, what do we have? A mess.

How many federal laws have YOU violated before noon today? How about your neighbor? Your immediate family? Your pets?

We’ve thought about this, and talked about this, for a long time. A longtime reader and behind-the-scenes contributor brought it up recently. She told us that before her retirement, she and one of her staff and I debated this very question:  How many federal and state laws, county and municipal ordinances (and for that matter, school rules) does a person break each day of their lives?

The only response we could come up with was “I don’t know”.  We finally settled on how governments (including school districts) have thousands, maybe millions, of laws, rules, regs, etc. And she added, “all of them trying to enforce the Ten Commandments.”

Well, maybe… But God through Moses didn’t tell the children of Israel how many gallons of water they could use to flush the toilet. Or how much sugar to sprinkle on their daily manna.

And that still left the question “why?” Why do we have all these laws? Laws that are difficult to follow and enforce, and easy to break? Because people are… well, people. People who have greed and lust. And want more and more. And view other people as prey to be exploited, consumed, destroyed.

It is often difficult to see through the lies, through the web of myths and fairytales that politicians and their controllers and bureaucrats spin.

Often (at least in the past), their STATED goal is as she said, to enforce the Ten Commandments (that is, God’s Law). But most of these things that they pass, and what these powers-that-be lust after? These laws and rules and regulations are designed to give human parasites power (control) and wealth – taken from others.

When you study the Bible and history in general, there may be a few surprises. First, even with “just” the Ten Commandments (and several hundred verses in Leviticus and Deuteronomy) people had a serious problem with obeying the laws. But He loved them, and He balanced love and mercy and justice.

So God provided the people of Israel with that system of sacrifices “rolling the sins forward” to the sacrifice of Christ Jesus. And He ultimately replaced the Ten Commandments and the rest of the Law of Moses and replaced it with a new, human-wide, covenant. A Covenant that was founded on some very simple premises.

First, love God and love one another as He loves us. Second, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. (Lovers of liberty today often call that second one the No- or Zero-Aggression Principle, or ZAP.) Simple, right? Not only that, but which (to quote Leviticus) “proclaimed liberty unto all the land, and unto the people thereof.”

Sadly, we humans can’t leave well enough alone. We have to “improve” things. And rebel against things. So not only do we constantly ignore those two basic principles but we invent a lot more “basic rules:” nonsense which we don’t follow any better. But which gives other people a claim to judge and rule us. (A false claim, admittedly.) And which mostly seem to be more easily ignored or perverted. And give an excuse for tyrants, for jackbooted thugs. Which is why we are in the mess we are today.

Recently we were studying the first few verses of Habakkuk (one of the books of prophesy in the Old Testament). Chapter 1 talks about the perverting of justice because the law was ineffective: man pretending to follow God’s laws but making up their own (and then not even following those) – but Habakkuk explains, I think, that God’s justice cannot be perverted whatever man does: He (the Lord) will do as He promises.

For those of us with faith in God, this is a beacon of hope: He will ensure ultimately that justice will be done, whatever men try to force through. There is an old saying about that: “What man proposes, God disposes.”

Those without faith or belief in God still have history to study and learn from. In the long run, evil tyrants and their beneficiaries do pay, and communities do regain or restore liberty. And justice. If not “for all” (an admirable goal), for most.

We who love liberty, whether we are believers in God or not, have far more in common with each other than any of us do with the tyrants, the parasites, the lawmakers and enforcers. Let us live like that.