The other day I was driving my daughter somewhere and she commented on the recent “March for Our Lives” protest around the country. She actually knows some people who attended the rally in DC. She commented: “You know Daddy, I think this is the first time I’ve EVER heard of someone marching for LESS rights!” (Right on, kid. First time for me too!) Then she said, “I saw photos of signs saying, ‘I’d rather have security over freedom’. Can you believe that, Daddy?”
Yes, I can. Plenty of people think that way, tragically. These are people who learn nothing from history. They are oblivious to the fact that those who trade in their liberty for supposed “security”… get neither. Every tyrannical government in the world promises security if you will only surrender your liberty to their authority.
Then my daughter concluded the conversation with: “You know what all that protesting reminded me of? That part in the Bible where Israel demanded that Samuel give them a king just so they could be like all the other nations. Give us a king to tell us what to do, so we can be secure. And everyone was just blindly following along without thinking.” Yep. That’s my girl! Always thinking, and having something very profound to say (just like her mother).
The “March for Our Lives” also reminded me of Israel constantly harping to Moses that they wanted to go back to Egypt. In Egypt they had all the yummy food they wanted (they thought), they had a beautiful river to play in, they had plenty of work to do…but they were slaves back there. They forgot that they were slaves. They thought that trading in their liberty for security was a better deal. Pharaoh would have agreed.
Tyrants always like that idea.