“These Americans are the most peculiar people in the world. You’ll not believe it when I tell you how they behave. In a local community in their country, a citizen may conceive of some need which is not being met. What does he do? He goes across the street and discusses it with his neighbor. Then what happens? A committee comes into existence, and then the committee begins functioning on behalf of that need, and you won’t believe this, but it is true! All of this is done without reference to any bureaucrat! All of this is done by the private citizens on their own initiative. Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions consistently form associations to give entertainments, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the Antipodes. The help of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.”1
pocketcollege.com
Rushdoony haal hier aan uit ‘n brief wat De Torqueville geskryf het tydens sy besoek aan Amerika (1830). Dit is die Amerika waarna almal opgekyk het en wat die Japanese leierskap daartoe gemotiveer het om hul Samorai baarde af te skeer en Japan te moderniseer. Hierdie is dieselfde vryheidseienskappe wat deur Max Weber beskryf word as die “Protestant Work Ethic”.
Die afgelope 100 jaar het ons samelewing meer en meer begin opkyk na die staat om van die wieg tot die graf vir sy burgers te sorg. Daar is twee redes hoekom hierdie neiging nie goed is nie:
- 1 Sam 8 wys uit dat die HERE ons koning moet wees en dat ‘n messiaanse gesentraliseerde staat tot onderdrukking sal lei
- Die mens is van nature sleg (weens die sondeval) en ‘n gesentraliseerde staat kan deur magsugtige heersers misbruik word. Dit sal dan tot nadeel wees van almal. In die geskiedenis het ons byvoorbeeld gesien dat heersers hul onderdane sien as:
- mense op wie eksperimente gedoen kan word: “People in the camps were used as guinea pigs in hunger experiments. In one case flour was mixed with 30 percent paper paste in bread to study the effects on digestion, while in another study marsh plankton were mixed with rice water. The first experiment caused atrocious constipation throughout the camp, which caused many deaths. The second also caused much illness, and many who were already weakened ended up dying”2
- pione wat na willekeur doodgemaak kan word ” ‘All we need to build our country is a million good revolutionaries. No more than that. And we would rather kill ten friends than allow one enemy to live’. Such statements by the Khmer Rouge were commonplace at cooperative meetings and indeed they put this genocidal logic into practice.”3
Vandag sug ons oor die staat wat meer en meer in ons lewens inmeng en besluite neem wat in stryd staan met wat ons glo en dink. Hierdie waarneming van De Torqueville oor die snaakse Amerikaners moet ter harte geneem word. Christen Afrikaners moet verantwoordelikheid vir hul eie lewens neem. Moenie vir die burokrate wag nie. Doen wat jy self kan. Natuurlik is “doen dit self” sonder die HERE nutteloos (Ps 127) – maar dit beteken nie dat ons daarom nie self moet probeer om ‘n verskil te maak nie. Dit is tog “Ora et labora”. Stig die komitees en werk en bid vir ‘n nuwe reformasie waar Afrikaners die HERE vry en in Afrikaans kan aanbid en tot sy eer kan arbei.
- https://pocketcollege.com/transcript/RR178A2.html?fbclid=IwAR39EHLHeLlGspAuvka2clCDhf9pbWbFoKF8qdGpTqgNDIDDA28oN7BDsa4 ↩︎
- The Blackbook of Communism, Courtois S, 1999, Harvard Univercity Press, p494 ↩︎
- The Blackbook of Communism, Courtois S, 1999, Harvard Univercity Press, p608 ↩︎
wereldbeeld.org 