As a roaring lion, and a ranging bear; so is a wicked ruler over the poor people.
From biblical records, we have clear pictures of wicked rulers. They exercise eminent domain and confiscate the property of poor men (1 Kings 21:1–13). They kill babies and enforce birth control on poor people as was the case with the Pharaoh at the birth of Moses and King Herod at the birth of Christ (Exod. 1:15–22; Matt. 2:11–18). These tyrants re-appeared in the 20th century in full force, but it began with the eugenic doctrines of Charles Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton. Piggybacking on Darwin’s survival of the fittest, Galton took this doctrine to its logical conclusion: the survival of the fittest race. In his book Human Faculty, this wicked man introduced the fateful concept of eugenics in which, “The final object would be to devise means for favouring individuals who bore the signs of membership of a superior race.”
This new “scientific elite” played right into the hands of the social planners—those who would use government to engineer that “superior race.” The first targets in this country were those whom the government deemed mentally unfit. In all, the government subjected at least 65,000 people in thirty-three states to compulsory sterilization. In the famous Buck v. Bell case—adjudicated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1927 and decided by a vote of 8–1—a poor woman was sterilized against her will. Commenting on the case in the ruling, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, “Three generations of imbeciles is enough.” The victim, Carrie Bell, had one daughter who was listed on her school’s honor roll in April, 1931.
Tyrants in the present day operate under a thin guise of moral rectitude and scientific pseudo-wisdom. But if you strip back the masks, you find the same type of wicked tyrants who ruled in the time of Moses and Christ.
The social planners now spend more of their resources on indoctrinating the masses using media, schools, and universities. Also, since the 1970s, the federal government has poured billions of dollars into Planned Parenthood, an organization dedicated to reducing the birth rate among poor minorities, especially the African-American population. Since 1973, there have been over thirteen million black children eliminated in the womb. Three out of five pregnant African-American women will abort their children, and fully one third of abortions are committed on black women (who only make up 12% of the population). By their expenditures of billions of dollars, social planners really can bring devastation to communities of poor people. They encourage them to murder. They fund fornication and have helped to increase the percentage of inner city children born without fathers from 30% in the 1960s to 70% at the present time.
In some nations, evil tyrants are extremely blatant in their wickedness. A missionary in China recently told of a family who dared to have a second child. Because of the one-child-per-family policy, the local tyrants imposed a fine on the family which they could not pay. The bureaucrats proceeded to kill the child on the spot.
The prince that wants [lacks] understanding is also a great oppressor; but he that hates covetousness shall prolong his days.
Sometimes stupid men will subject the people to unreasonable and oppressive conditions. What caused the Ukrainian famine of 1932 was a combination of stealing and stupidity. First, the Premier of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin, confiscated property from the Kulak farmers who had tilled the soil for generations. Turning the farms over to bureaucrats who were supposed to run the collective farms was stupid enough. But then, the tyrant demanded unreasonable exports of all foodstuffs out of the Ukraine into Russia, leaving the country with nothing to feed its own people. This famine killed an unprecedented 7,000,000 people. To that point in history, most famines came as a result of natural causes such as droughts and plagues. With the advent of modern social planning and centralized communist governments we find multiple instances of famine by stupidity.
Was it wickedness or stupidity that resulted in the dissolution of Israel in the reign of Rehoboam? He listened to the wrong advisors and chose to tyrannize his people (1 Kin. 12:14). His actions brought about the secession of the northern tribes under King Jeroboam. Ruling by intimidation may yield a little progress, but in the long run the tyrant will not achieve good productivity by beating or starving his people to death. It takes more finesse and more wisdom than that to lead a business or a country.
If you are looking for the best long-term strategy that yields the most longevity for a business or a political order, the second half of the verse fits the bill. Hate covetousness. Greedy men will always make a bad judgment call at some critical point in their career. They will drive their businesses into the ground. Power-driven politicians will fail to make the prudent decision because it would cause short term pain and diminish their chances of re-election. Because their highest value is their own popularity and power, they will back away from the hard calls. They will buckle under pressure. During the first decades of the 21st century, the American government tried to spend its way out of economic ruin. This was the popular option and many politicians from both political parties added trillions of dollars in deficit spending to the national debt in the process. It was the worst thing they could do, although it might have extended their political careers for a few years. The constant impulse to personal affluence is dangerous and destructive. Wise men will refuse to make their decisions based on the metric of personal affluence and power they receive. Wherever greed is the motivator, these men will shy away from the investments, the projects, and the political endeavors involved.
One of the four most important biblical prerequisites for political office is that the man must “hate covetousness” (Ex. 18:21). This man must, at all costs, avoid the coveting of other people’s money for the purposes of controlling that money and channeling it into the pockets of his favorite causes. But he must also hate the political maneuvering, the fame game, and the power mongering. Sad to say, these characteristics very much describe many of our leaders in public office today.
1. How did tyrants take advantage of Carrie Bell in the 1920s in America? What has happened to the children of immigrants from Africa here in America between 1960 and 2010?
2. How did the Ukrainian famine of 1932 come about?
3. What kind of leaders should we look for if we are endorsing candidates for the civil magistrate (reference Ex. 18:21 and 2 Sam. 23:2)?