This is part 4 of a 5-part article.
Read Part 1 Here
Read Part 2 Here
Read Part 3 Here
Read Part 5 Here
Differing Views of Human Nature
Without a solid base of principles, the haters tend toward a pessimistic, cynical view of human nature.
Because they are constantly focused on oppressive persons to fight, over time all they can see are humans abusing power, much like disillusioned veteran police officers.
They do not have a positive, proactive vision of what they want; all they know is what they don’t want (external domination).
Because they don’t understand the concept of , fighting that which they do not want is constantly their focus, and in fact, they eventually begin to exaggerate their claims of oppression.
Lovers work from the inside out, while haters work from the outside in, but rarely if ever do the haters make it to the inside of themselves to begin the process of internal change; there are simply too many external injustices to fight.
Although lovers harbor no illusions about the realities of human nature, they possess a calm and balanced optimism of the nature of mankind, if for no other reason than that they have seen the effects of positive internal change in themselves.
In fact, many veteran haters who have been engaged in the struggle of fighting oppression for years often give up in their later years because of their pessimism, while lovers just keep getting stronger and more powerful in the process of personal, societal, and governmental change as they age and mature.
The haters are the bitter, disillusioned old men who laugh sardonically and derisively at the recollection of their younger years when they were full of vitality and purpose.
The old lovers spend their last years peacefully and gratefully, with fond memories of battles won, relationships forged, and wisdom gained.
Instituting & Maintaining Government
In terms of the implementation of governments, haters of oppression are found in one of two camps: either they are suspicious of any form of government whatsoever, or they are the first to call for a monarchy immediately after defeating a previous, despotic monarchy.
The concept of balance is foreign to their thought processes. Hence, the hatred of oppression accounts for the phenomenon of the perpetual pendulum swing of individuals, nations, and cultures from one extreme end of the scale of possible freedom to the other, as opposed to implementing forms that seek a balance between the equally destructive extremes of tyranny and anarchy.
Freedom lovers, on the other hand, understand that proper forms and frameworks are a necessary component to the preservation of generational freedom, and they are not suspicious of the implementation of these forms — they seek them out and welcome them wholeheartedly yet carefully.
Because they suffer from the shortsightedness of selfishness, the implementation of government to an oppression hater is a defensive, reactive, hurried, and haphazard process that almost inevitably leads to the extremes of either tyranny or anarchy.
For the freedom lover, the pursuit of good government is a devoted, impassioned, lifelong endeavor and because he pursues it in a proactive fashion, he is never forced into rash decisions in the heat of the moment; when crises arrive he is composed and prepared to meet them deliberately, wisely, and imperturbably.
An oppression hater has a difficult time differentiating between real, inalienable rights, and the mere ability to perform some act, whereas a freedom lover is able to draw a distinct, definite line between the two.
Probably the most determining reason for this is that oppression haters are often atheistic and accept no higher authority than man’s reason and physical nature (physical nature being in reference to hedonism).
Lovers of liberty, on the other hand, firmly believe that inalienable rights come from a higher source than man.
Their belief in a supreme, omnipotent, omniscient Being provides them with an objective standard of right and wrong, and unlike haters of oppression, they never use moral relativism as a method to justify wrong actions.
In his classic novel War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy explains this from a Christian perspective by writing,
“For us, with the standard of good and evil given us by Christ, there is nothing for which we have no standard. And there is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.”
For example, oppression haters fight for their perceived right to abort unborn children. Freedom lovers don’t even accept the simple ability to take this actions as a natural right in the first place.
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Stephen Palmer is a book writer for mission-driven leaders, a small business lead generation website design architect and persuasive website copywriter, a co-founder of The Center for Social Leadership, and the author of Uncommon Sense: A Common Citizen’s Guide to Rebuilding America.
He co-authored the New York Times bestseller Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths that are Destroying Your Prosperity, as well as Hub Mentality: Shifting from Business Transactions to Community Interaction.
He is a liberal-arts graduate of George Wythe University and a graduate and faculty member of the “non-traditional business school” Wizard Academy.
Stephen resides in Round Rock, Texas with his gorgeous wife Karina, awesome son Alex, and princess daughters Libby, Avery, and Laela.
Subscribe to Stephen’s blog and contact him at stephen [at] leadershipwriter [dot] com.
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