We are missing the point.  The fact that taxes are too high or not high enough is not the point. The fact that our deficit is outrageous or is manageable is not the point.  Debt is only a symptom of the real problem.   We think that if we can put the right person in the driver’s seat, he or she can save the country from its woes.   Wrong.  Wrong.  Wrong. 

The founders knew one basic fact that makes all the differences.  We are imperfect beings who make mistakes; we stumble.  If we manage our own lives we can get up, “brush ourselves off, and start all over again.”  However, if we put our faith in another to manage our lives, all 300 million of us, and he stumbles we’re in for a rough ride. Thomas Jefferson said, “A constitution should be structured to permanently protect the people from the human frailties of their rulers.” 

 That’s why God confused the languages and disbursed the people when they built the Tower of Babel.  He didn’t want them consolidating power.  That’s why God didn’t want the Israelites to have kings.  He knows that power corrupts.  That’s why God wanted the Israelites to organize themselves into families and clans.  He knew that people can take care of themselves if left alone.  We were designed to be free, to walk our walk and stumble and learn and walk again with a “little help from our friends.”

Our Tower of Babel is our federal government.  We have built a leviathan to pay homage to.  Our founders set up a limited government to serve the people.   The egomaniacs in DC have lost their sense of humility.  They see themselves as Gods able to solve our problems, but their solutions are invariably toxic, creating more problems to be solved until we have this colossal tower of government that is not so much interested in protecting the interests of the citizenry as it is interested in making sure that the citizens serve the interest of the state.

Like the Israelites we have yielded to the will of an earthly king trusting that he’ll take care of us rather that remembering the lessons of the past.  Thomas Jefferson’s letters are filled with references to past histories. He understood what destroyed the great empires of the past, the Greeks, the Romans, the Anglos and the Saxons:  centralization of power, towers of Babel.  He said, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.  In vain would man…subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.”