Give Us a King

By: Mark Matthews, Esq. 

Mark Matthews is an attorney, former JAG-officer, businessman and contributor to ITPS.

editorial@inthepublicsquare.com

During the first presidential candidate debate, moderator Jim Lehrer asked a series of questions about how the financial bailout of Wall Street might affect each candidate’s priorities if elected President of the United States .  Unsatisfied with the responses from Senators McCain and Obama, Lehrer rephrased the question three times:

LEHRER: […] what priorities would you adjust, as President, Senator McCain, […] because of the financial bailout cost?

LEHRER: But if I hear the two of you correctly neither one of you is suggesting any major changes in what you want to do as President as a result of the financial bailout? Is that what you're saying?

LEHRER: What I'm trying to get at is this. Excuse me if I may, Senator. Trying to get at that you all – one of you is going to be the President of the United States come January […] in the middle of a huge financial crisis that is yet to be resolved. And what I'm trying to get at is how this is going to affect you not in very specific -- small ways but in major ways and the approach to take as to the presidency.

Finally, Lehrer asked the question again, this time using a disturbing turn of phrase:

LEHRER: Before we go to another lead question. Let me figure out a way to ask the same question in a slightly different way here. Are you – are you willing to acknowledge both of you that this financial crisis is going to affect the way you rule the country as President of the United States [Italics mine] beyond the kinds of things that you have already – I mean, is it a major move? Is it going to have a major affect?

So here, in a presidential candidate debate, the moderator, who is no stranger to the Washington scene, quite explicitly, if unconsciously, suggests that the person elected President is expected to rule the United States of America . 

Whether consciously or not, something has changed in our disposition toward leaders. Something has changed in our expectations. Somewhere over the course of our history the American character has abandoned the jealous pride of being the true sovereign of this country. We no longer view events and issues as citizens. Rather now, we somehow see ourselves as subjects to be ruled.

Apparently, no longer is the office of President a stewardship of public trust in the Executive branch of a republican government. No longer is the Presidency an office charged with limited powers to execute the laws of the land. Now the office of President of the United States is a coronation of implicit fiat authority to rule, a person anointed by the priests of the media, like Jim Lehrer, called forth to power by an adoring public which desires to set the citizen’s responsibility of democratic stewardship upon the brow of anyone who can lead them and do that which they no longer desire to do—which is to govern themselves. This would revolt the sensibilities of the founding fathers. Indeed they must be weeping in their graves.  

Most Americans today have little sense of how to understand our present difficulties and challenges. We are too busy with our private affairs to regard the stewardship of our country as anything but a distraction to buying and selling and entertaining ourselves. For most of us there is no integrated worldview, no source of wisdom or moral truth, no historical context that would alert us to the dangers of being ruled as opposed to governing ourselves. We no longer understand or even think in Constitutional terms about representatives and reserved and limited powers, or the express limits of defined political offices. This is mostly the result of the stupefying effect of displacing Christian religion, history, civics and political philosophy with the pabulum and cant of “social studies.” It is also the result of allowing secular intellectuals to introduce into our culture the mutating virus of an elite who presume to know better how to engineer society than our present institutions allow. This elitist appetite to "rule" for the good of those who cannot and will not govern themselves, allows the “best and brightest” among us to imagine, like Plato, that our republic should be governed by men who will redesign our culture, our economy, our families, our churches, our schools, even our sciences to conform to a new worldview unconstrained by God, intermediary institutions or transcendent moral precepts.

And yet, against this ancient and nearly universal rebellion against the proper limits and purposes of self-government, is a Christian narrative long forgotten in our post-Christian culture. In Chapter 1 of the First Book of Samuel, in Chapter 8, verses1-22, readers of that ancient book are witnesses to warnings issued to a people who foolishly clamor to be ruled.

In his old age Samuel appointed his sons as judges over Israel . The name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of his second son was Abijah. They were judges in Beer Sheba . But his sons did not follow his ways. Instead, they made money dishonestly, accepted bribes, and perverted justice.

So all the elders of Israel gathered together and approached Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, “Look, you are old, and your sons don’t follow your ways. So now appoint over us a king to lead us, just like all the other nations have.

But this request displeased Samuel, for they said, “Give us a king to lead us.” So Samuel prayed to the Lord. The Lord said to Samuel, “Do everything the people request of you.  For it is not you that they have rejected, but it is me that they have rejected as their king. Just as they have done from the day that I brought them up from Egypt until this very day, they have rejected me and have served other gods. This is what they are also doing to you. So now do as they say.  But seriously warn them and make them aware of the policies of the king who will rule over them.” 

So Samuel spoke all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, [Italics mine] “Here are the policies of the king who will rule over you: He will conscript your sons and put them in his chariot forces and in his cavalry; they will run in front of his chariot. He will appoint for himself leaders of thousands and leaders of fifties, as well as those who plow his ground, reap his harvest, and make his weapons of war and his chariot equipment. He will take your daughters to be ointment makers, cooks, and bakers. He will take your best fields and vineyards and give them to his own servants. He will demand a tenth of your seed and of the produce of your vineyards and give it to his administrators and his servants. He will take your male and female servants, as well as your best cattle and your donkeys, and assign them for his own use. He will demand a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will be his servants. In that day you will cry out because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord won’t answer you in that day.” 

But the people refused to heed Samuel’s warning.  Instead they said, “No! There will be a king over us! We will be like all the other nations. Our king will judge us and lead us and fight our battles.”

So Samuel listened to everything the people said and then reported it to the Lord. The Lord said to Samuel, “Do as they say and install a king over them.”

Here today, in this time of crisis, the media and too many in our republic look to a ruler to save us from ourselves.  In our sloth and folly, we do not consider the terrible price that comes with being ruled.  Rulers demand much. They do not give up power. And unlike constitutionally limited Presidents, are bound by no checks upon the lawless appetites of hubris and injustice.

Although the Bible does not explicitly say so, it is easy to image that the prophet Samuel would agree with the old saw, “the people do not always get the government they deserve, but they always deserve the government they get.”