It seems their only purpose is to suppress individualism and freedom?
Do Organized Governments serve a purpose?

Not at this scale.

Government isn't the problem, it is the filth that is attracted to the fold that is the issue.

The Bible has the system in general in the N.T. and much detail in the first 5 books.

Do you believe the Bible?

Yes.

At the very least, they can organize to attempt to teach people how to use apostrophes.

At some level all government is BS but small constitutional government is the lesser of all evils. Absent government is anarchy. Anarchy is nothing more than a power void and chaos between more stable forms of control likely tyranny. Our founders realized that a democracy was an unstable form of majority rules tyranny. The two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner line.

I wonder what genghis khan would say?

Some level of government is necessary to coordinate various things, such as a monetary system, for instance, in a multi-state country like ours, but we exceeded that level around 1861 & it's grown exponentially out of hand ever since to where we now exist simply to feed the monster that is the federal government.

MM

No

Yes

Yep

No

I need somebody to sign my checks... man.

Genghis Khan was a warlord. That can work as can a great King. The problems crops up with a less than great one. Our systems fatal flaw was allowing to many people a vote and not realizing that they wouldn’t value our structure because they weren’t part of the bedrock that founded it.

Some government is necessary because otherwise nature would take it's course and the strongest would dominate everyone else and deprive them of their rights and property. The problem occurs when government becomes so big that it fills that same role, it basically becomes the neighborhood bully that deprives everyone of their rights and property. Our constitutional republic was designed to protect the rights of citizens but it's broken down and the constitution is pretty much ignored today. Now we're at the point where one faction can deprive the rest of their rights and property at a whim under the color of law.

Well said

When I say the NT, I'm not talking about the three additional LDS books or masonic texts.
I'm talking about the book ending with the Revelation of Jesus Christ.

I could give you a month of Sundays on the topic and only scratch the surface. I'll highlight the very basics IF you want the Lord's view on how gts are SUPPOSED to function.

Firstly, Romans 13 gets a misunderstood bad wrap from those who hate the Bible and blame God for their own lack of responsibility. We know that dictators misuse Romans 13 like the devil misused the Scripture to try to pull a fast one over on Jesus His God.
Of course Jesus rebuked him with truth.
The key to understanding the one phase to obey the higher powers is verses 9-10

" Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself"

That's the way society is supposed to function according to the only good basis of civilization.
Now the following is how gtvs of God are ordained to be. Read carefully a few times.

"For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil."

There are laws of the revenger of blood for instance.
That would be the executioner of a murderer. Then there are cities of refuge. There are judges with a very basic judicial body that seeks God's Word rather than a whole major three story library full of books.

Speaking of judges, Jesus the Son of the Father rebuked the judges of Israel at the time. He rebuked many power factions.
Why?
They set aside His own Word for the commandments of men. They were bribed and would bribe others. Corruption abounded.. much like today.
The unjust people will judge the one and only just One when they shirk responsibility for their own sins.
They blame God rather than evil people in the world who rebel from Him. You've probably heard others blame God for the suffering of the innocent and why do good people suffer, and if there REALLY was a God who loved humanity, then WHY is the world so messed up??
These are misguided questions seeking no answer . They are like the inner city welfare community blaming crackers for keeping them down. They only need to look in a mirror and look unto the Savior.

God tells us the answers for those with ears to hear. My heart goes out to those who are harmed unjustly.
I realize that we are in an evil world filled with people who reject God's ways in order to establish their own.
God tells us to protect the weak and fatherless. He warns the judges to not rule in favor of the rich against the widows for bribes. There's a righteous plan that was rejected . Now mankind lives with the rotten fruits of his decisions until the Lord's return.....return of THE King. After He disposes of Satan's armies, He will establish His kingdom in pure righteousness, justice and truth.
Every one of us have failed.
God doesn't grade forgiveness on a bell curve.
He grades it on a cross.
We ALL failed. There's no make up exam.
What He offers now is forgiveness that He Himself made available by His torture and death for our crimes against Him. The eternal life can not be earned and it is not deserved. It must be received as the free gift that it is.

"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Romans 6:23

"That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works lest any man should boast."
Ephesians 2

Grace is His offer of kindness regardless of our many sins. Faith in Christ alone is the only solution of salvation from hell. It's a gift already paid for. No works of any other man are acceptable

The rest is in one or both links below in the Sig.
Feel free to ask if you have any specific questions.
But take care of things now for you and yours. 👍
Have a great weekend.

Happy Camper

I agree with Crow Hunter, no government leaves a power vaccum and leads to tyranny. Limited constitutional government who's purpose is to defend individual liberty and allows the people to make change (elected congress) is a good thing. What we've fallen into for a long time where an elite minority pull the strings with the swipe of a pen or dollar also takes us down the road to tyranny which we are now under.

Agreed and the way we’ve fallen for it is through enlarging the voting block. I’m not sure what the solution is for that. Offering more free stuff from money to votes sells. Our founders didn’t take that into account.

If you don't have a government, you soon will and you likely won't like it. That's what we're seeing now. The left is trying to dismantle our government and leave us without one. Then they make their move and we have THEIR version of government.

We will have china's version of the global government.

Sure they are... but not the way they are being ran, nor by the people who are running them.

Governments do what people can not do themselves.

If it would stop there.

Look at what is going on in Oregon. People are expressing their "individuality and freedom" to burn cities to the ground and loot stores, Why? Because the government there is letting them.....there is essentially no government.

I go back to the John Adams quote....“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

As our country becomes less and less Christian we are going to need more government just to keep us from killing each other.

See my sig line.....

Nature tolerates no vacuum.
Some entity will rule.

Ain’t no Big Rock Candy Mountain.

I always agreed with Paine’s view of government.

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a Government, which we might expect in a country without Government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other law-giver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him, out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expence and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.

I believe that some form of government is not only necessary, but inevitable. There have been a bunch of theories put forward that describe anarchical solutions, but I daresay nobody would like actually living in them, especially not at the population densities we have today.

I read a lot of local history, and the main road out by us is a perfect example of what a pastoral anarchy was like. Winton Road stretches from the Mill Creek on the north side of Cincinnati out to an unnotable crossroad about halfway to Hamilton, Ohio. It passed through a ring of greenhouses and small truck farms that provided vegetables to the city, but as you get further out, there was a pattern that developed: one rather large white farm house about every mile, and between these were fields.

Nobody planned it that way. It just happened. The houses were built before the Civil War, and a few survived as working farms until I showed up in the late 50's. A very few are still standing, but they are now ringed by subdivisions thrown up in the 60's and 70's. See, back then you knew everyone on that entire road. There were only a couple dozen families. Now? It's all cut up into quarter-acre lots, strip malls, and gas stations. Folks back then just did what they did, and there was not much to argue about. I was around to watch the last of those farms get swallowed up.

But they did have government. They had the Springfield Township government. They had the Hamilton County government. They took turns at these posts. They dutifully collected taxes from each other. They organized school districts, volunteer fire departments, and eventually zoning boards and police departments. This was not something that was imposed on them. They did it, because it provided them with what they wanted-- security, protection and order.

One other thing worth mentioning: It looks like an ideal pastoral life, but it wasn't. Those farmers brought 3 times the lawsuits to the courts as the average citizen today. There wasn't much to argue about, but they always found something. Folks were dying left and right of dread diseases. In fact, the town just to the west of Winton Road, was renamed Mount Healthy, just because it escaped the Cholera epidemic of 1850. Per capita crime was much higher than today, and if something bad happened to you out in the field, it was 15 miles by wagon to the hospital in Cincinnati, and Winton road was badly rutted and you had to navigate the big hill above Wooden Shoe Hollow to get there. I was around to see the bypass built in the early 1960's. It was a massive public works project that cost millions, but it allowed the folks along Winton Road to have a safe way to get to town.

Is it possible to NOT be governed by something?????

Word.

4.8 trillion dollars (FY 2021) doesn't even buy border protection.

There is no such thing as anarchy, at least not as a relatively permanent state. Government always forms. When you start from anarchy, government forms through the power of the most powerful, vicious thug.

I agree that some form of government is inevitable, so its probably a good idea to figure out how to form a government that is at least somewhat effective, minimally intrusive and relatively cheap. So far, that's proven to be a pretty tall order, and I'm doubtful if it can be achieved on a large scale for more than one generation.

I haven't travelled the world to see how things work everywhere else, so maybe some little country somewhere has it figured out, but I'd be surprised.

The problem is, was and always will be human nature. Those most desiring power will always be attracted to positions in government. People are largely vindictive, greedy and gullible, and therefore easily manipulated by anyone promising them an advantage over their neighbor or to punish and restrict the freedom of a people who they don't like. The most power hungry people who are smart enough to be good manipulators and ruthless enough to step on whomever they need to in order to climb the ladder inevitably arrive at the top, so in short order you have mostly the very worst candidates possible filling all the most important positions of power. The results of that aren't hard to figure out.

After the American revolution, we had the opportunity to set up something completely different and, thank you Lord, we had a group of very intelligent men to set it up. There was no power grab like we see in most similar cases. They all had the idea of limiting central power, not the usual plan of an all encompassing central power.

Needed for defense, interstate infrastructure, judicial issues, and some enforcement. There is a lot in life, however, that it should have never stepped into like health care and welfare. People and families should be in charge of their own destinies.

Education, attempting to modify or define moral behavior....... to add to the list!

Afghanistan is like a social laboratory. A collection of tribes with Sharia law as the only common factor. The Taliban emerged as enforcers of the the holy way and slayed their way to power in the name of allah. Theocracies as touted by dummies like the crappy hamper have a few thousand years of history of oppression. The more fundamental the sect the more heavy handed and powerful the clergy.

A moral people can form a democracy w/out a prescribed religion if they share a commonality of culture. The founding fathers here were very careful and emphatic in separating church and state. The family is the building block of a civil society in which the strong protect the weak and aberant behavior is not tolerated.

An elected government fails when they create bureaucracies and allow them to assume regulatory and enforcement powers w/out recognizing that many humans are venal and will take advantage of any weakness. Civil Service protections have led to the gluttonous monster that tries to rule our lives today.

It is said that people get the govt. that they deserve. We are at a tipping point now.


mike r

That was a very good summation.

Too many people being allowed to vote is indeed a problem.

Genghis Khan was a warlord to who conquered vast swaths of land in order to provide his people with a home and to secure their future. Which he did by installing the Mongol way of life as the dominant one wherever he led his armies. He was one of the first, if not the first, great Nationalist leaders. Selfless, from the perspective of his people, selfish as viewed by everyone who wasn't.

"Government" is organic, kinda like a fire ant bed. A few dumbasses find a Snickers Bar and build a living around it. Everyone's fat and lazy and it's easier to let someone else build the tunnels and raise the babies.

Then the sugar runs out and they gotta steal it any way they can.

From my observation, he also gave the various peoples he met along the way a choice, either you can join me and my friends....or I can come over and kill all of you.

They absolutely do. The provide employment for the parasites, and otherwise useless dead weight.

Humans appear wired for it. If you take away the part of our government essential to protecting and preserving our natural rights, you would have very little.

Yes to collect and spend taxes

That was a typical liberal summary of our founding and the exact main reason we are about to see it's demise. Throwing God and the Bible out of everything claiming separation of state is the problem.

Good quote.