Independent Editor,
These are the principles that I find useful in guiding me when voting for a candidate or for a ballot initiative. America was founded on a balance between law and individual freedom. This is called ordered liberty. Freedom to do anything a person chooses is not ordered liberty, it is license, anarchy and chaos. Total state control is tyranny and people have no freedom. Neither total state control nor total license to do anything one chooses is the same as ordered liberty.
The purpose civil government or the state is to provide protection and order (I Timothy 2:1-2; Romans 13:1-7) so a person is free to live their life according to pursue their hopes and dreams. That is ordered liberty.
The Declaration of Independence is our nation’s mission statement which declares that “all men are created equal,” and “that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Life was stated first because without life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not possible. So the first and foremost duty of government is to protect human life from conception to natural death. Almost as important as life is liberty, because without liberty people lose hope and fall into despair because they are not free to pursue their dreams. Liberty is the oxygen of Life! The second most important duty of government is to protect individual freedom within the boundaries of God’s moral law expressed in the Ten Commandments.
With life and liberty protected a person then free to pursue their dreams. For the Christian, that person is free to follow their God-given call according to their gifts and talents.
The question the becomes, which candidate is more likely to promote policies to protect human life and ordered liberty? That is a fundamental principle to consider when voting for a candidate or for a ballot proposal.
Richard Ross, Bennington Township