God Tells Us Not to Trust in Princes – We Should Probably Listen

The Bible contains so much wisdom it’s hard to understand why so many people, especially many who profess to be Catholic, have never bothered to read it.

For instance, whenever someone mentions Washington D.C. or the government, two of my favorite verses come to mind, “Better to take refuge in the LORD than to put one’s trust in mortals. Better to take refuge in the LORD than to put one’s trust in princes” [Psalms 118:8-9].

In 1 Samuel 8 God even warns His chosen people of all the problems they are going to have if they decide they want a king to lead them instead of just following His laws.  He told them kings usually end up becoming tyrants and dictators.  But they didn’t listen.

Democracy may or may not be better than having a beneficent mortal king.  But is any form of governance really better than having God as King?

Many of our princes (i.e., elected officials) have been acting like tyrants and dictators since the coronavirus hit our shores.  But, virus aside, many mortals and princes today seem to think more man-made laws are the answer to everything that ails society.  But as Peter Darcy has pointed out, “The real problem we face today is the generalized rot in the political and cultural institutions of our once-sane society.”

According to Wikipedia more than 30,000 federal statutes have been enacted since 1789.  This number does not include state laws or agency regulations that have the force of law. And some of these laws and regulations are downright goofy.

Sometimes laws get passed that never should have gotten past the discussion stage.  Prohibition is a good example.  It was a blatant and failed attempt at social engineering.  It really only succeeded in creating organized crime.

To be fair, there are good man-made laws, and most have good intentions behind them.  The antitrust laws, for instance, prohibit monopolies and promote fair and free trade.

Promoting the General Welfare?

At the same time many laws intended to benefit society and “promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” fail to live up to their promise.  Some laws favor “special interests” to the detriment of others.  And some have not-so-good unintended consequences, as Prohibition proved.

Our princes also seem to forget one crucial factor when it comes to lawmaking: bad people don’t care about what is legal and what is not.  This thought is aptly summed up in the saying ‘when guns are outlawed only criminals will have guns.’  Or, as Shane so aptly put it in the movie of the same name: a gun is a tool; it’s only as good or as bad as the man using it.

And that’s really the crux of the matter.  We all have free will.  We can choose either good or bad – God and God’s truths, or the devil and sin.

Laws do not instill virtuous behavior in people.  The Holy Spirit does.

A Case in Point

God gave us 10 laws by which to live.  They are really all the laws we need.  But mankind just keeps adding to them.

For instance, Congress passed the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) law in 1991.  According to this wonderful law, all I had to do was enter my phone number on the Do Not Call Registry and all those annoying telemarketers would stop calling me.

The TCPA, so said our princes, would stop nuisance phone calls.  It said all those annoying telemarketers and scammers would be caught, prosecuted, put out of business, fined and/or put in jail if they called me.  All those irritating, annoying, nuisance calls that tend to occur when you’re in the shower, fixing the lawnmower, eating dinner, or doing the dishes would all cease.

I listed my home phone and cell phone number on the Do Not Call Registry on day one.  But the nuisance calls did not stop.  The calls just keep on coming.

The problem here is that ‘Do Not Call’ does not work.

Fraudsters and Scammers

Just recently I got two calls from the Social Security Department saying “there is a legal enforcement action filed on your social security number for fraudulent activity.”  Of course the call is likely coming from an overseas scammer.  One tip off is that there is no Social Security Department.  It’s called the Social Security Administration.

Even if your telephone number is listed in the Do not Call Registry, more than likely you’ve gotten a robocall from “Rachel at Card Services.”  There are no problems with your credit card, she’ll tell you, but you may qualify for lower rates.  Or maybe the call was from Stacey, Heather, or just Card Services.

It turns out that recordings like these are pretty generic.  Any fraudster who wants to take a shot at credit card telephone scamming can make one of these recordings.  The FTC managed to shut down one such scammer in 2010 that was making 2.6 billion calls a year.  In 2012 they shut down and settled a case against another company, SBN Peripherals (a.k.a. Asia Pacific Telecom).  SBN paid $3 million in fines and was banned from doing any more telemarketing.  But new scammers keep taking their place.

A Promise Not Kept

According to the FCC’s website, “Commercial telemarketers are not allowed to call you if your number is on the registry, subject to certain exceptions.  As a result, consumers can, if they choose, reduce the number of unwanted phone calls to their homes.”

Have you registered you phone number in the Do not Call Registry?  How’s that worked out for YOU?  Have you noticed a decrease in the number of nuisance calls you get?

Just for kicks, a few years ago I decided to track all the unwanted calls I received for a month or two.   The two months ended up becoming six months, and over that period of time I received 286 unwanted phone calls.   Rachel alone called me 37 times.

I dutifully reported all the scammer/telemarketing calls to the FCC, but that did little to reduce the volume or frequency.

Thanks to Caller ID, however, I now don’t answer a lot of the calls we receive. But they are still irritating, annoying, and bothersome because I still have to go to phone to see who’s calling when it rings.  And even when I don’t answer, many of these jerks leave messages on my answering machine.

There are, of course, devices that one can buy to block such calls.  Phone companies also offer call-blocking services, for an extra fee.   There are also call blocking apps for VoIP users and cell phones.  This is free enterprise at work.

Offshoring Scamming

I take a pass on the call blocking services and apps. I kind of like the idea of holding our princes accountable on the TCPA.  They assured me the TCPA would reduce the number of unwanted calls I receive.  I’m still waiting for them to make good on that promise.  I may end up waiting a long time because our princes have always been good on making promises but not so good at keeping them.

Of course, back in 1991 the TCPA lawmakers did not foresee Voice Over IP and “number spoofing.”  Number spoofing lets scammers falsify the information being sent to your caller ID.  So lawmakers had to pass another law.  Under the Federal Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009, caller ID spoofing used to defraud someone is a crime.  But the calls still keep coming.

Since a lot of these calls originate in foreign countries, it’s a little bit difficult for the FTC to track down the scammers and prosecute them.

More Laws & Government are Not the Answer

The federal government hasn’t been able to stop something as simple and straightforward as annoying telephone calls, even though they’ve had the power to do so with a law that’s been in effect for almost 30 years.  And two government agencies, the FCC and the FTC, are involved in the administration and enforcement of the law.  Together these agencies employ almost 2,500 people.

And now many princes on the left are talking about more new laws to stop “hate speech,” bigotry, and “systemic racism.”  In fact, Joe Biden has a plan to fix just about all of our problems.

Biden says he going to use science to keep us safe from an airborne virus and he’ll use the Green New Deal to fix the world’s climate problems.  He’s also going to “expand access to affordable child care and care for older Americans and people with disabilities, and provide paid leave and other important workplace benefits and protections.”

Joe even says he’s going to “end violence against women” and “protect and empower women around the world” [italics added for emphasis].  But the government can’t even stop all those annoying, nuisance phone calls here in the U.S.  Joe’s hubris is on display big time.

When Will We Learn?

I always smile whenever I see someone holding up a sign saying “John 14:6” in crowd shots at various kinds of events.  He, or she, gets it, I think to myself.

Every year in December we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior.  As many have said, His birth was a turning point in the history of our world.  Unfortunately we are a far cry from completing the turn.

As the Christmas carol “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” says,

Remember Christ our Savior

Was born on Christmas Day

To save us all from Satan’s pow’r

When we were gone astray

We are still going astray.  Too many people are still listening to the devil.

Neither governments nor ideologies – nor science – will solve the world’s problems.  More laws made by princes are not the answer to what ails society. The left, it seems, just can’t get it through their collective heads that Christ is the ONLY answer to fixing what’s wrong with the world.  If everyone did their best to emulate our Lord and Savior all day every day, the 10 Commandments would be all the laws we need.

Evangelize

St. Paul offered some encouragement and sound advice to Timothy that is appropriate in this regard [italics added for emphasis]:

“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingly power: proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching.

“For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine but, following their own desires and insatiable curiosity, will accumulate teachers and will stop listening to the truth and will be diverted to myths.

“But you, be self-possessed in all circumstances; put up with hardship; perform the work of an evangelist; fulfill your ministry” [2 Timothy 4:1-5].

Start evangelizing!  A good way to begin is by re-evangelizing all the lapsed Catholics you know.  Make 2021 the year you bring people to Christ through the Catholic Church.