Leadership, Labels, and Life

Leadership is a dangerous thing. The Bible warns that leaders bear an added responsibility, they are in part responsible for where they lead others. Anyone who takes up the mantel of leadership should do so with great caution, understanding that their actions will have ripple effects that they cannot possibly anticipate. These ripple effects can be good, creating a better world and more freedom. Or, these ripple effects can be bad, and cause great harm for years to come.

It should be noted that although leaders bear a large portion of responsibility, followers too bear responsibility. As individuals we all have the responsibility to seek out the Truth. We have the responsibility to never follow a leader simply because they are a leader. We have the responsibility to cling to unchanging Truth and eternal principles and only follow leaders who will take us in the direction of that truth and those principles.

Our world seems to be obsessed with labels. People label themselves with the clothes they wear, their style of hair, the car they drive, where they live, their ancestors, and the list goes on. It should be understood that no one is just a label. Instead, who we are determines the labels that other apply to us, right or wrong.

In each of the labels that our society creates, we see a constant, unerring desire to find a leader within that label. This is the person that ends up on the magazine cover. This is the person that represents that label to the world. Sometimes these leaders are chosen. Sometimes these leaders are self-appointed. And sometimes no one has a clue how they got there, but there they are.

Tomi Lahren has caused a lot of talk in conservative circles recently after her comments on The View.

The label of conservatism is possibly one the most misunderstood and misapplied labels in our modern time. Conservatism has to do with protecting and preserving a system of principles and beliefs. In America, these principles and beliefs include 5 main elements found in our Declaration of Independence:

(1) self-evident truth, (2) equal God-given rights, (3) a government whose only job is to protect those rights, (4) a people who hold power over the government, and (5) the citizen’s ability to alter government to fulfill its real purpose.

Just like every other label, conservatism seeks a leader. This can be a good thing, if the right leader if followed. However, this can be a very bad thing when the leader is someone who proclaims to hold the beliefs and values of conservatism, and is even considered a leader in the conservative movement, while simultaneously trampling on the very core of conservative beliefs and values. The name Tomi Lahren comes to mind here.

The second main element of conservative principles and beliefs is “equal God-given rights”. These God-given rights include, but are not limited to, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. The right to life is listed first for a reason.

Thomas Jefferson: “The first duty of government is the protection of life, not its destruction.  The chief purpose of government is to protect life. Abandon that and you have abandoned all.”

This should be an obvious fact. What good is your right to free speech (or any other right) if someone is able to take your right to life? Yet millions of Americans favor the ability of a mother to take away the right to life of an unborn child. The justification for this abhorrent behavior is often that the so-called “fetus” is not in fact a human being. This argument is preposterous on its face and it is shameful that “informed” adults in this scientific age would ever make such an argument.

This is the 21st century. We know for a fact that babies are able to learn while still inside the womb. Babies are able to feel pain while still inside the womb. Babies are able to survive after only 24 weeks in the womb. And that number is constantly getting lower because of advances in medicine. A baby’s heart begins beating only 22 or 23 days after conception.

An unborn child is a human being and due all the rights and protections guaranteed to all other Americans. Calling abortion murder is not interfering with a woman’s rights (as Tomi Lahren seems to think). It is preventing the mother from interfering with that unborn child’s rights.  

Thomas Jefferson: “Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add “within the limits of the law,” because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.”

If all individuals have equal, God-given rights, then our right to “action according to our will” ceases abruptly anytime our right interferes with the rights of another individual.

Thomas Jefferson: “No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.”

We should be very wary of  “conservative leaders” such as Tomi Lahren who advocate against the very core of conservative beliefs and values. The individual right to life of each human being is fundamental to conservative belief. Therefore we ought to question boldly anyone who attempts to wear the label of conservatism while trying to strip the right to life from the most vulnerable.

Jonathan Paine

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