Good Government: Armed Forces

Good Government: Defence

Illustration 1: Hezekiah's Tunnel in Jerusalem

Even the worst “governments” understand the importance of this. A drug baron or crime boss who cannot defend their turf against competing gangs does not stay in business! A ruler whose country is overrun is no longer the ruler and generally no longer alive.

However there are also good reasons why good governments should see defence of their people against external attack as a primary role.

It is just a fact of history that peoples who were not able to defend themselves have been overrun by more aggressive peoples. Occasionally they were allowed to become vassal states of an expanding empire. More usually they were plundered and or carried off as slaves. Other times they were simply exterminated or driven out of their homeland.

In the Biblical narrative there are examples of both success and failure of rulers defending their people.

The well worn Bible stories of the Judges, Samuel, Saul and David indicate the essential need for rulers who could lead an army in a mileau where surrounding peoples and nations were persistently attacking the ancient Israelites. The account of Hezekiah shows a king applauded in scripture making careful preparation for defence including digging a tunnel to bring water into Jerusalem and holding out at God's command against a terrifying encircling army. On the other hand Jeremiah depicts the sad fate of the nation under king Zedekiah, who having been sworn in as a vassal king rebelled against his overlord, and rejected both God's command and the opportunity to surrender.

So defence is primarily about protecting the population. Always this means being prepared for war. Generally it means displaying an attitude that if push comes to shove you can and will fight. Sometimes it means surrender in the face of overwhelming odds.

These days some hate the once familiar Bible stories. Many years ago after giving a children's talk in church about David and Goliath. Afterwards I was roundly abused by one woman who certainly saw herself as a “born again” Christian”, her message was “I don't bring my children to church to hear stories glorifying war!” I think it both a great mistake to try to cut inconvenient buts out of the Bible, and a mistake to underestimate God.

God is the ultimate reality. We frequently delude ourselves: He sees perfectly. We pretend: God is Who he is.

So in the affairs of this world. If scientists are right, then God brought about what we see now both with a breathtaking superabundance – millions of galaxies and also he rought life on earth to what we see about us with “the terrible arithmetic of necessity”. Hunting and killing is an inescapable part of the animal world. (in heaven this is overcome: “the wolf will lie down with the lamb” etc.)but on earth "Nature is red in tooth and claw".

This “terrible arithmetic of necessity” applies in human affairs too. Specifically because human beings are sinful. Wars will happen because this side of heaven there will always be people who will start them. So it is a defective view of God to discount to Biblical instances where God supported warfare and gave military prowess and tactical support and advice to soldiers. It is similarly a mistake to reject the place in modern society of military virtues and effective armed forces.

But at the same time, it is also a grave misunderstanding of God's character to ignore texts such as “blessed are the peacemakers” and God's denunciation of all manner of war crimes and of starting wars to increase one's boundaries!

On the topic of people starting wars, history is full of megalomaniacs who tried to conquer the world. School history lessons seem to give these more attention than peaceful rulers, and give scant attention to the enormity of the human suffering they caused.

Think Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte and all the others from our history lessons. What effect did they have on the sum total of human happiness?

Coming to more recent times there is a prickly question: What about Western colonisation of the New World?

Many present day American Indians and Australian Aborigines look on these events as “invasion”. Europeans at the time simply saw it as migration to an under-utilised (or even “empty”) land.

Modern progressives have promoted the former view to the hurt of both races. For the indigenous peoples it has engendered a feeling of grievance and victim-hood that has crippled them. For the population-at-large it has engendered at feeling of national guilt bordering on a self loathing of our own culture which has enabled progressives to successfully attack the cultural pillars of our society.

For all pre-scientific cultures, there was a mythology which constructed a world view and explanation of “life the universe and everything” Most cultural practices and rituals of daily life were tied to this mythology.

As soon as primitive culture came into contact with modern scientific culture there was a confrontation of world views. This was not an attack or part of an invasion strategy it was just the inevitable result of being exposed to scientific ideas which “burst the bubble” of  mythological explanations.

It is just “sociology 1.01” again that this exposure to modern scientific explanations wreaked havoc with their cultural identity. Everywhere this happened the results were similar: culture shock, despondency, social breakdown and alcoholism. It is all terribly sad: but no one’s fault.

The real fault now lies with the people trying to keep aboriginal peoples as “pet primitives” rather than integrating them into modern society. Their old culture cannot co-exist with modern, the old cosmology cannot cannot compete with modern science: so all that happens is that these poor wretches are kept in a state of perpetual culture shock. Kept in an inescapable world of despair, dysfunction, unemployment, family abuse and alcoholism.

England provides a success story, from what really was an invasion!

In 1066 William the Conqueror invaded England. It was a rich prize and wealth and lands robbed from the inhabitants were distributed among his Norman supporters. However after hundreds of years of intermarriage all are simply “English people” with no one claiming “I am a Saxon descendant and I want reparation from the descendants of the Normans”.