Freedom without restraint or responsibility – Idaho Business Review - Idaho Business Review

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Oscar Evans

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” — James Madison in The Federalist 51

As I write this, a group of cowardly bully activists are outside the personal residence of an Idaho state representative. The home where he and his wife live with their children. Their castle where they eat, sleep, pray and relax together away from the burdens, dangers and cares of this world.

His constituents and others — including activists and agitators from outside his district — can reach him by phone, email, social media, in the hallways at the State Capitol, in the committee rooms and meetings and probably other ways that I have yet to consider.

But these cowards choose instead to show up at their personal residence for one reason — to try to bully and intimidate him and his family. We should all agree that this is not acceptable regardless of our position on any particular legislation or act.

They are at his house on the sidewalk with torches and pitchforks trying to intimidate him because he is sponsoring a bill that… wait for it… bans protesting at the private residence of a public official.

Ironically, in Federalist 51, Madison’s intent was to show the necessity of restraint on government by the governed, not on the people. The protestors are claiming that they are not being heard. It’s perhaps worthy of consideration that, just because one’s voices are not affirmed or approved, does not mean that they are not being heard. But. of course, that is a sentiment that requires reason and basic comprehension to consider and understand.

I suspect that many of the torch- and pitchfork-wielding activists would gladly and quickly correct you if you dared to refer to our Constitutional Republic as a democracy.

Their intent is, of course, to remind you that pure democracy historically descends into mob rule. Which is yet another precious irony lost on those who demand to be heard anytime, anywhere and anyway including through assemblage of small mobs at private residences, simply because they believe that their own lack of success must mean they are not being heard.

Unfortunately, it is when the people choose to exercise freedom without responsibility, and enjoy liberty without restraint, that the government of the people by the people must act to protect the decent people and servants from the mob. So it is perhaps the perfect display of irony that the people who would protest the potential enactment of new laws to restrain their lack of decency would show their lack of decency in protesting the new law… in a very indecent manner.

Oscar Evans is a retired Air Force Lt. Colonel and decorated fighter pilot with over 3,000 hours of flight time in the F/A 18 and F15 including 400 carrier landings. He is a realtor and leadership consultant, an Owyhee County GOP precinct committeeman and a former candidate for state representative.

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