Lifting The Burden Of The Less Intelligent

What do you think would be the result of gathering together America’s best and brightest intellectual elite to manage the nation’s economy and social engineering policies for the future? Advocates of central planning have a long record of supporting the idea that the intellectual few need the power to manage the lives of the common people who are less wise in making important decisions. The disastrous results of such policies – when enforced – are well documented in the history of the 20th century. Nevertheless, the supporters of central planning have not been deterred by the facts. Thomas Sowell, who is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of The Housing Boom and Bust writes an excellent article concerning this phenomenon:

Many of the wonderful-sounding ideas that have been tried as government policies have failed disastrously. Because so few people bother to study history, often the same ideas and policies have been tried again, either in another country or in the same country at a later time– and with the same disastrous results.

One of the ideas that has proved to be almost impervious to evidence is the idea that wise and far-sighted people need to take control and plan economic and social policies so that there will be a rational and just order, rather than chaos resulting from things being allowed to take their own course. It sounds so logical and plausible that demanding hard evidence would seem almost like nit-picking.

In one form or another, this idea goes back at least as far as the French Revolution in the 18th century. As J.A. Schumpeter later wrote of that era, “general well-being ought to have been the consequence,” but “instead we find misery, shame and, at the end of it all, a stream of blood.”

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A Blessing On This House

John Adams

Quoting President John Adams:

“I pray heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house, and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.”

Alexander Hamilton: We Cannot Count On The Moderation Of Others

Alexander Hamilton

Quoting Alexander Hamilton:

“Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.”

The Electing Love Of God

Jonathan Edwards

In the words of Jonathan Edwards (1703 – 1758):

“God’s electing a certain definite number is a manifestation of His glory. It shows the glory of His divine sovereignty. God is declaring His absolute sovereignty over His creation. He is showing us just how far that sovereignty extends. In purposely choosing some and passing on others, He shows that His majesty and power are unparalleled. Those who do not see glory and dominion in election simply do not understand God. They are not aware of His greatness, and do not understand grace is defined in election. God chose His people to happiness and glory long before they were born. He chose them out of the mass of fallen mankind. He loved them before they knew Him. He chose them when they did not deserve to be chosen. That is grace!

The doctrine of election shows that if those who received God’s grace had earnestly sought it, it was God’s grace that caused them to seek it. It shows that even their faith itself is the gift of God, and their persevering in a way of holiness unto glory is also the fruit of electing love. Believer’s love of God is the fruit of and because of God’s love to them. The giving of Christ, the preaching of the gospel, and the appointing of ordinances are all fruits of the grace of election. All the grace that is shown to mankind, either in this world or in the world to come, is comprised of the electing love of God.”