No Anti-Semitism in Sight

To the Jew First, Then Also to the Greek

Amongst the Founders of the US Republic, the Jewish people were held in very high regard and respect in general.  This position was consistent with the extremely high respect maintained for God Himself. 

John Adams serves as a prime example:

Adams held the Jewish people and their religion in the highest esteem.  Such an appreciation for Judaism--and the contribution of Jews to the making of a better world--is most evident in his private letters sent to close friends.  In the whole of his political writings, Adams drew heavily on Greek and Roman political experience but did not ignore the patrimony of the Hebrews.   He wrote in 1809:

"I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation.  If I were an atheist, and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations.  If I were an atheists of the other sect, who believe or pretend to believe that all is ordered by chance, I should believe that chance had ordered the Jews to preserve and propagate to all mankind the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise, almighty sovereign of the universe, which I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization."

  . . . . In a missive dated December 31, 1808, he confessed being appalled by Voltaire's derogatory comments about the Hebrew Bible and the Jewish people.  Adams commented:

"How is it possible this old Fellow [Voltaire} should represent the Hebrews in such contemptible light?  They are the most glorious Nation that ever inhabited this Earth.  The Romans and their Empire were but a Bauble in comparison of [sic] the Jews.  They have given Religion to the quarters of the globe and have influenced the affairs of mankind more, and more happily, than any other Nation ancient or modern."

[Augusto Zimmermann, Christian Foundations of the Common Law: Volume 2: The United States (Brisbane: Connor Court Publishing, 2018), p. 100f.]

The Corruption of Power And Its Antidotes

Messy Republicanism Any Day

As we watch nations around the world descend into unimaginable horrors it gives reason to pause.  What a blessing and privilege it is to live in a country protected by the rule of law, on the one hand, and governance by limited state authorities, on the other.

A recent Weekly Guardian carried a front page story on the Congo.  The headlines read, "Congo Fears A New Civil War" and "Violence and political turmoil as people living in DRC are caught between rebel militias and lawless soldiers."  It profiles the case of a dying 22 year old rebel fighter:

Kapitu was wounded in a clash between his rebel group and a rival faction in December.  Even in the remote valleys and hills of the far east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the battle took place, few paid much attention.  Such scrappy, bloody confrontations have become an almost daily occurrence. . . . "I was just a foot soldier so I don't really know why we were fighting," he said.  "There are lots of reasons I think. . . . I don't think the wars here will ever stop.  They will probably only get worse."

This kind of lawlessness is widespread.  Couple that with tyrannical regimes which exercise cruel oppression over their own citizens--South Africa stripping farmers of their land, for example--and one is forced to concede that the world generally is a wicked place.  Law and order, exercised by a self-disciplined and constitutionally limited state, is a "luxury" not to be taken for granted.