When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, "Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us," be sure to appoint over you the king the LORD your God chooses. He must be from among your own brothers. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not a brother Israelite. The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the LORD has told you, "You are not to go back that way again." He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.And a warning...
When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are Levites. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.
- Deuteronomy 17.14-20
...they said, "Give us a king to lead us," this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD. And the LORD told him: "Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do."
Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, "This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day."
But the people refused to listen to Samuel. "No!" they said. "We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles."
When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the LORD. The LORD answered, "Listen to them and give them a king."
Then Samuel said to the men of Israel, "Everyone go back to his town."
- 1 Samuel 8.6-22
I found it interesting that the provisions for a king was already outlined when Israel was still in the desert. I tuned in on this part as I was reading a friend's blog earlier, where he is talking about early Chinese emperors and how the early kings avoided extravagance and instead opted for a simple life style. A life of servitude. The modern government is also designed to do that; centralizing power and serving the people. Although I'm, in general, tempted to bash our governments for endless bickering and finger pointing (as oppose to actually solving problems), I will refrain. Having been in leadership roles, I recognize that it's hard to draw a compromise and meet everyone's ideas. It leads to a greater question of...should a governmental leader let his own beliefs and biases colour his political decisions?
Who do we elect?
The current Canadian Prime Minister, Steven Harper, is a Christian (denominational Alliance, actually. I was a bit surprised. I thought Alliance people were all Chinese, haha). We've already established that the government's job is to serve the people. Do we elect governments that will listen to the public and implement changes are appropriate? Or do we elect a person because we want certain agendas to be met in the country?
Most people would probably reply the latter, but with expectations that the former would happen (especially if your particular needs are not being met by the existing platforms). Are these two ideals not contradicting?
Political leader of another kind
It is expected that Harper would behave "Christianity" while he's in office, and table bills and appoint others with Christian ideals. People rant when that does not happen. So what if we ended up with another type of leader? What if we had a pro-communist leader that was elected in because not enough people voted? Or a fifth column effect occured? Surely, we would protest and break windows and firebomb police cars (you knew a G20 reference was coming) and complain that democracy is being destroyed.
So now...you WOULDN'T want the political leaders to implement their beliefs. So then...what should these people do? As a leader, you're often stuck with trying to set up the system so that it meets the needs of the maximum amount of people. If the people are unhappy, you're simply removed from power, and can't influence the system anymore. A very real case of how you can't please everyone.
Okay. So what?
Not really trying to advance any agenda. Part of this post came from the amusing Bible passages, where God laid down the rules before a king came into the picture, as if He already knew it'll happen. Part of this post came up from the annoyance at the knee-jerk reaction commentaries (and the knee-jerk reaction to these reactions) I tend to find on CBC when the government does something stupid. Part of this post comes from lack of voter turnout and how many people choose not make informed votes. Another part came from the frustration at the G20 protests. As another friend noted, I'm a loss to where these anarchists came from. Sigh...
1 comment:
oh boy political theory ლ(╹‿╹ლ)
> Do we elect governments that will listen to the public and implement changes are appropriate? Or do we elect a person because we want certain agendas to be met in the country?
The answer is that we elect governments based on the second. The catch is that governments govern according to the first. In theory, if you get elected and form a government, the assumption is that your agenda and public opinion are in line with each other.
There are a few things to note.
The first is that representatives are elected as trustees, in that we trust them with the autonomy to act according to the public interest and not just be a mouthpiece for their constituents (as in the delegate model). If the constituents really don't feel that their representative works in their interest, they can replace them.
Secondly, governments are elected by their supporters, which is not the entire base of the constituency, but once they're elected, they are expected to represent and work in the interest of all constituents. The most obvious recent case is the UK election. During the election, the various parties are adversarial. After representatives have been elected, the parties come together and try and come to an arrangement to form a government that can best act in the public interest. In theory, there should be a strong delineation between campaigning and governing.
> It is expected that Harper would behave "Christianity" while he's in office, and table bills and appoint others with Christian ideals.
This is usually an implicit assumption that people make, setting themselves up for disappointment. It's like expecting someone to behave Chinese while they're in office. Like, what does that even mean?
Ultimately, I think our expectations of our government and our representatives is often unrealistic because we don't understand how they work. A pretty easy one is the immense amount of focus and emphasis on the Office of the Prime Minister and the accompanying expansion of power that's taken place over the last few decades.
Finally, the more I learn about politics and history, the more I'm hesitant to apply biblical principles about rulers and nations without serious examination. This is because, once you get into the details, the modern concepts of governments and states are so fundamentally different that it'd be kind of like applying biblical principles to cars or something.
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