(WND)
In countries more interested in maintaining the façade of self-government than its substance, eligible citizens are penalized for not voting. If the vote is the symbol of freedom, they are, in Rousseau’s words, forced to be free. This self-contradictory freedom may make sense to people surrendered to the bondage of their passions, or, as Saint Paul calls it, “the law in our members” (Romans 7:23). One could be excused for arguing that, for people thus naturally self-enslaved, Aristotle’s ancient justification of slavery (Politics Book 1, Chapters 4-7) may hold some truth. But the government of the United States was framed by and for a people determined to fulfill the promise of humanity, given by God when he endowed our material nature with the faculty of rational thought.
On account of that faculty, we are capable of standing aside from the ebb and flow of material energy that informs our passions, in order to consider it as part, and yet apart from us. We can conceive of ourselves, as it were, simultaneously participating in events and distantly observing them.
We can also conjure them in advance, subjecting them to imaginative alterations that allow us to envisage various possibilities. In a word, we may consider them as choices to be made, rather than experiences we must simply and inevitably endure. Read more
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