Think-A-Minute: Character Trumps Policy

Note: This post is largely inspired by completely ripped off from Wall Builders.

Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them; and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men, than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it be ill, they will cure it. But, if men be bad, let the government be never so good, they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their turn.

I know some say, let us have good laws, and no matter for the men that execute them: but let them consider, that though good laws do well, good men do better: for good laws may want good men, and be abolished or evaded by ill men, but good men will never want (lack) good laws, nor suffer ill ones.

-William Penn, Frame of Government of Pennsylvania, May 5, 1682


Can a country last long which elects as it's rulers those of low character, even if they proclaim wise policy? Not according to William Penn. His argument is clear, no matter how good the laws, it is the men & women in office that enforce them. And if those men & women are of low character, they whey will "warp and spoil government" to their benefit.

It therefore behooves us to ensure only good people achieve office and then to watch closely to ensure they remain good.

Think about that. And remember it whenever you're called upon to select leaders.

Think-A-Minute: Catastrophic processes? Inconceivable!

Everybody knows the earth is billions of years old. It was formed through slow geological processes that take, for example, a million years, or so, to lay down a layer of rock one or two millimeters thick. And even longer for a river to cut a channel through it, which eventually becomes a canyon like, oh let's just say Grand Canyon. And the reason we don't see it happening is that it's such a slow process, and our lives (and for that matter all of recorded history) are so short.

And then along comes the Mt. St. Helens eruption of 1980, and catastrophically lays down thousands of layers of lava, debris, and ash in a matter of hours. Then, two years later, a smaller, mid-winter eruption melts the snow and ice in the crater causing catastrophic mud flows that carved out a mini Grand Canyon through the stratified rock layers in a few short days. It's as if Someone wanted us to know that millions of years are not required, just catastrophic circumstances.

So, if the long ages are not geologically necessary, why are geologists so adamant about their interpretation, clinging to the age-old rocks like The Man In Black dangling at the brink of the Cliffs of Insanity? And what other supposed long, slow geological processes could be better explained by catastrophes (or one big catastrophe)? I do not think it means what they think it means.




Dig deeper:
Mt. St. Helens and Catastrophism
Mount St. Helens—evidence for Genesis!


Photo Credit:
Image lifted from Google Image Search. Originally from The Princess Bride (1987), directed by Rob Reiner.