Life Matters - July 9, 2025
“Responsibility is the price of freedom.” – Elbert Hubbard. Upon the signing of the U.S. Constitution, John Adams said it this way; ‘’This Constitution has been written for a moral and religious people, it is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.’’ Moral and religious. The U.S. founding fathers took for granted that ‘moral and religious’ meant—and would continue to mean—as based upon the Word of God, The Holy Bible. They were men. They failed. They understood something, however, about the heart of man and were not naïve about the prospect, the very real possibility, that the taste of liberty could be so intoxicating to some they could very well stumble and veer off course. Hence the checks and balances we have today with a leader at the helm. No Kings 2.0 protests on July 4th by the political left-wingers of America notwithstanding, the American government has been, and again is, recognized as the leader of the Free World. President Trump keeps on winning to Make America Great Again. Some of those moves are an attempt to cut waste, to downsize bureaucracy, while maintaining law and order on the border and elsewhere.
One late afternoon in the late 1980s, I was sitting on a chair at a lawyer’s office in Carrolton, Kentucky. His secretary had acknowledged my appointment, shown me to a seat in his office and assured me the attorney would be in soon. He soon came, but not before I had time to sit back and absorb my surroundings. The sturdy solid oak bookshelves lining most of three walls from the floor practically to the ceiling were fascinating, but what fascinated me even more than the shelves were the books. Hundreds of books. Maybe thousands of books. As my wondering eyes searched in vain for something familiar, such as an author’s name or a book title, it slowly dawned on my befuddled brain that most…no, all…of what I was seeing…were law books…
The man I was waiting for soon came in, shook my hand, took a chair at his table, invited me to a chair across from him and, as I arose, apologized for the wait. ‘’Oh, that’s ok,” I said as I stood, “I had time to admire your shelving. And your many books. Am I seeing right? They look like all law books?”
‘’You’re right,” he said, “all of them are law books, full of laws to follow.’’
I was astonished. ‘’How,” I asked, “can you keep up with them all? Surely you can’t know all of them?”
‘’Well no,” he said, “but I do need to know how to find what I need. Or my secretary does.’’
‘’We started with a simple Constitution, then a Bill of Rights and a few other Amendments from there,” I said, “right?”
The lawyer answered in the affirmative.
‘’So…” I asked as I made a sweeping gesture by opening both arms, “how did this happen?”
‘’This happened,” the good lawyer responded, “for several reasons. One, new politicians getting elected and introducing bills containing their ‘good ideas’ that get passed into law; two, people finding loopholes in laws they don’t like; and three, other politicians trying to plug those loopholes. And so,” he continued, making the same sweeping gesture with his arms, “we have this.’’
‘’Oh.” said I. After a bit more conversation, I sat down on the offered chair at the table and we continued with the business at hand. But the words of my friend, the lawyer, were encrypted among the legal categories of my brain. My questing brain had a whole host of questions answered that day.
The first is; why all the detailed laws that require consistent updates by professional consultants to stay abreast of in their ebb and flow?
The second was connected to the first; How can I, a simple country bumpkin, involved in industrialized America by building pallets for them, be sure I’m staying legal enough to not be financially destroyed by the first I.R.S. audit that comes along? There were others, but those two were uppermost questions that came to an uneasy settlement in my brain.
Years later, I was again sitting in a lawyer’s office complete with shelving, books, a table and chairs. This time in South Dakota. Again with legal questions, concerned about staying legal. After giving me legal advice and, I suppose, seeing I was still a bit troubled, my friend, the lawyer, gave me a last bit of excellent advice; ‘’Keep records that balance out and make sense to you. Auditors are looking for the knowingly deceptive, not for the honest small business manager making an honest mistake. If your record-keeping makes sense, even if not everything is perfectly legal, you may get a warning. Just take the warning and tweak where you need to. Sure, there’s a renegade here and there, but auditors are reasonable men like you and I. If your record-keeping makes sense you’ll be ok.” (a disclaimer unless a law has ebbed out with the tide; when delivering one’s own product across state lines the product is subject to sales tax)
But there you have it. Responsible men stay free. Unless persecuted. Our responsibility to American liberty is to be so religiously moral that freedom makes sense. Then to be thankful for law in our freedom. That sounds much like an outflow of living like Galatians 5:13-14 ‘’For brethren, ye have been called unto liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’’ Respect for law and order should be normal.
Life Matters!