EP 105: Principles of Government Part 1: Natural Law, Rights, and Duties

“It is the lack of knowledge of natural law and principles over the last century that has gotten us to where we are now.” ~Audrey Rindlisbacher

In this time of great civil unrest, do you know the principles of government that can save us? Do you have a clear understanding of the natural laws and fundamental ideas that shaped the first American documents? Do you know for yourself how these principles, ideas and documents led to the greatest amount of freedom for the largest number of people than ever before in history?

Most importantly, do you know how important all of this is -- for you, for your family, for your community and for the world?

Join Audrey and Lindsey this week as they begin a discussion about the natural laws, rights and duties that lay the foundation of proper thinking about ourselves, our communities and our government. As we learn these truths and put our own lives in line with them, and then share them with others, we can correct what's going wrong!

Listener's Guide:

Use the time stamps below to skip to any part of the podcast. 

1:33      Begin at the Beginning - Aristotle

3:46     The State of All Men - Locke

12:01    The Beginning of Society

14:23    Natural Rights

23:50    Worldviews

29:53    The Four Natural Rights vs. Entitlement

32:32    Maintaining Natural Rights

40:25    Duty/Responsibility

46:19     Natural Law-Now and in the Future

Quotes from this episode:

“Of all the things that I know, what I know best is what goes on inside of me.” ~C.S. Lewis

“The better you understand your home life, the interactions in your family, and the interactions in your neighborhood, and how these interactions work, the better you understand government.” ~Audrey Rindlisbacher

“It all begins with the individual.” ~Aristotle

“ ...it is impossible that the rulers now on earth should make any benefit, or derive the least shadow of authority from that, which is held to be the fountain of all power...” ~John Locke

“To understand political power, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.” ~John Locke

“A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection, unless the lord and master of them all should, by any manifest declaration of his will, set one above another, and confer on him, by an evident and clear appointment, an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty.” ~John Locke

“This equality of men by nature, the judicious Hooker looks upon as so evident in itself, and beyond all question, that he makes it the foundation of that obligation to mutual love amongst men, on which he builds the duties they owe one another, and from whence he derives the great maxims of justice and charity.” ~John Locke

“The family is the association established by nature for the supply of men's everyday wants...But when several families are united, and the association aims at something more than the supply of daily needs, the first society to be formed is the village. And the most natural form of the village appears to be that of a colony from the family, composed of the children and grandchildren, who are said to be suckled 'with the same milk...Now, that man is more of a political animal than bees or any other gregarious animals is evident. And it is a characteristic of man that he alone has any sense of good and evil, of just and unjust, and the like.