The land of Goshen was the best part of Egypt for herds of animals, so
the family of Israel was settled there under Joseph’s administration.
The other benefit was that it kept the family of Israel separate from
the Egyptians, who considered the herding profession to be distasteful,
or worse. It was a great blessing to the family of Israel that Joseph
had accumulated such great power for the Egyptian government, because it
meant they would flourish through a deep famine-wrought recession. Not
long after Joseph died, things changed in Egypt, and the government
became repressive toward the Israelites. It used its considerable power
to enslave them.
With a somewhat ironic twist, current events in Egypt are
imitating history. Only today, God’s people are not necessarily
biological children of Israel, but rather spiritual children of
Abraham and Sarah. The false religion of Islam
traces its own genetic origins through Ishmael, the son of Hagar,
claiming that he was the son promised to Abraham. However, the Bible
clearly says this is not the case. Islam will always be quite hostile
toward Christianity, because of this difference, and especially because
of the Gospel. Christians in Egypt have assumed the role of the
children of Israel, as the despised animal-herders, but instead of
raising sheep and goats, they raise pigs. Pigs are despised and avoided
as a matter of law by both Jews and Muslims, but Christians recognize
that Christ’s work has freed us from the necessity of observing such
ceremonial laws of the Old Testament. So like the family of Israel,
Christians have found a profitable economic niche in Egypt.
But now, the Egyptian government, under Muslim control, has taken the
Swine Flu scare as a pretext to persecute the Christians, by killing all
their pigs. This effort is expressly contrary to the moral law of God,
for His injunction against stealing is a protection of private property.
If private citizens were doing this, it would be grounds for seeking
full reparations from the wrongdoers. However, ’tis the Egyptian
government. When a government persecutes like this, it shows itself
to be a repressive tyranny. We may see what steps the government
takes to make things right with the owners of these pigs.
If it does not make things right, what then? Will the Christians be
forced to sell what little they have left and leave their country? But
where could they go in today’s world, to find freedom? It’s fast
disappearing in the United States, as our own government shows itself to
be not entirely different from that in Egypt.
A hallmark of American freedom is the principle that government keeps
its fingers out of private life, allowing the citizens to conduct and
defend their own businesses, interests, and lives. Though there are
still limits to that principle, to keep citizens from harming each
other, government intervention is supposed to be limited to that which is
absolutely necessary, because our nation is composed of citizens, not of
government. That’s why recent actions by American governments (state,
federal, and local) have been so troubling. We’ve been taking steps in
the direction of Egypt’s example, from the White House to the
repressive neighborhood association that measures lawn height to the
nearest quarter-inch. On the national level, we’ve seen these examples
piling up for some time, but perhaps never as quickly as in the last few
months.
In one of the books I’ve been reading, I find it interesting that the
anti-federalists of the 1780’s were not opposed to the constitution per
se, but to the constitution without a bill of rights that would
expressly protect the interests of individuals — and some interests of
states — from tyrannical encroachments by the federal government. The
federalists argued that the bill of rights was unnecessary, because
all rights should be assumed to be protected. I think they were a bit
naíve. At least, they were unfamiliar with Chicago politics. Yet the
federalists made a good point: when you enumerate certain rights for
protection, it implies that the rights not listed are not protected.
The anti-federalists did not think that would be such a problem, but
that’s where they were wrong.
Though my friend Mary might prefer not to think of these protections as
“rights,” and she has a good point, the Bill of Rights has become one of
the last friends of the American Citizen in government. Members of
Congress are generally only interested in protecting and extending their
own influence by spending our tax money. Much of the judicial branch
only wants to reshape the country by creating new laws through its
supposed interpretation of existing law. Meanwhile, the executive
branch bullies private citizens into doing whatever it thinks is right,
with the present intention of “spreading the wealth around” in the name
of justice. No wonder the Bill of Rights has been under attack: it’s
one of the few things standing between American citizens and an
increasingly hostile and dysfunctional government. Both federalists and
anti-federalists were prescient, at least in their distrust of human
nature.
If American voters allow things to continue on the present course (and I
use the adjective “American” loosely, because I suspect there have been
many voters who are not), the effect of the first ten amendments will be
further curbed. Americans will further lose the right to free
speech (even on the Internet) and religion, just as
our right to petition the government for redress has been practically
forgotten. The Second Amendment truly is the original Department of
Homeland Security, from both foreign and domestic attack, including
domestic attacks upon the United States (i.e. American citizens) by their
government. Those who would like to curtail the other rights definitely
want to empty this one, as a prerequisite if possible. If and when that
happens, American citizens will be in a position not much different from
that of the Christian pig farmers in Egypt. Where could we go, then, to find freedom?