What kind of leader uses threats to get his way?” This is a question a correspondent asked today. He is an American evangelist in Belgium, and the question was in regards to both domestic and foreign US politics and the war in Ukraine and Russia.

Here is our answer, at first from a religious point of view (as one of us here replied to his question), and then from a political philosophic point of view – of lovers of liberty. We believe them to be fully compatible.

Matthew 20:25. Jesus said: “You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great men exercise authority over them.”

ALL human rulers use threats – spoken or merely implied – to get their way. Every mayor, every governor, every county commission, every king or prince or president or premier or prime minister or dictator or commissar.

Their threats are inherent in their office/position. It is the threat of the supposed “monopoly of power” that human governments claim to have.

At least Mao was honest when he wrote “All political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” But whether they have inherited power or seize power or are elected by “democratic means,” all rulers use threats, just as the Lord stated: the idea of “lording it over them” (Greek katakurieuo: to master, to overcome, to subdue, to domineer over, etc.) is key in the rebellion against the Creator that is the basis of human government.

We cannot name one American President, British or Belgian monarch, German, British, Belgian, etc. Prime Minister or Chancellor who ever met the godly requirements of “governing authorities” Paul writes in Romans 13:1-7. Indeed, these people are themselves violating verse 1: they are not submitting to the authority of God.

Whether it is Bart De Wever or Mark Carney or Donald Trump or Volodymyr Zelenskyy or Vladimir Putin, they are all committing evil acts, not just in threats but in many, many other things.

God gave us liberty. It is “unalienable” – that is, it is immoral, against the laws of nature and the universe, to take that away. But, being without very much good (that is, they are evil), the leaders and rulers of this world do constantly take away life and liberty. And interfere constantly with the pursuit of happiness. (However that is viewed or defined.)

This is why true libertarians – lovers of liberty – deny the legitimacy of human governments. It initiates force (and the threat of force) to force people to obey, to pay, to deny what they define as happiness. Government use of force is very seldom for the purpose of defending people (except for those in power and the goons that sustain that power).

More and more, human leaders and rulers are a terror to good conduct, while often turning a blind eye to bad conduct. Especially their own. Human government pretends to, but usually does not, approve doing good by others. So it is not our servant (nor God’s) for our good. While it has many reasons to “carry the sword,” those are not good reasons: their reasons are evil and they all too often do not bring wrath upon the wrongdoers (punish them) but instead allow them to run amuk. (Sometimes trying to repair the damage done.) In other words, whatever reasons we are given to obey and support government, governments have instead perverted those reasons.

Yes, there are sometimes leaders who do something “good” but how do they do these good things? With the money taken from individuals by force or the threat of force. In other words, stolen money obtained by threats.  

Both lovers of liberty and lovers of Christ Jesus need to see the reality of mandatory human government. And work to get rid of it.