How Would Jesus Run a Nation

Someone asked, "How would Jesus run a nation?"

Moses' civil Law gives us some helpful case-studies on how to govern. Moses' law was based on love and fairness.

There was no charging of one segment of society in order to pay for another segment of society - to do so would have been considered an injustice.

It recommended other ways to empower disadvantaged segments of society - but it never consisted of public, tax-funded, government-run schemes.

There was no such thing as progressive taxation - rich and poor alike paid 10% - nothing more, nothing less.

There was no legislated redistribution of wealth. There was no tax-funded welfare system - the cost of welfare was shouldered by one's own family first of all, or failing that, by private, voluntary, mutually-profitable agreements with one's creditor or employer.

Individuals weren't taxed to fund somebody else's health costs - there was no tax-subsidized health system - individuals paid their own health costs.

You weren't taxed to fund the education of someone else's children - families paid for the costs of their own children's education - there was no tax-funded educational system.

And there was no tax-funded prison system - the justice system consisted of restitution payments being made from the perpetrator to the innocent victim, without any cost to the public.

In Moses' system of Law nobody was forced by law to pay for anything for anyone else: every individual paid for everything himself - and the law didn't provide anything to anyone for free. Everything was provided on a user-pays basis, through a system of mutually profitable arrangements between individuals in the private sector.

But it was all subject to moral law.

We can learn from that. It keeps society fair and government small. It keeps people free! Anything the government can provide, families or businesses can provide better - provided they are allowed to provide it on a for-profit basis. This keeps things fair, instead of unequally charging the wealthier.

It makes providing services sustainable - because they can be funded on a private, for-profit basis.

It promotes responsibility and productivity and strengthens family and business relationships.

It combines compassion with fairness, without compromising either.

Economies function better when men are free without big government. That's why I prefer privatization to government-spending in a welfare-state.

State-funded welfare, taken to extreme, is misguided compassion. It's an inequality of justice against those who pay for it. God's law found ways to allow everyone the chance to get ahead, without ever charging any one segment of society. Every solution was always a win-win situation financially.

Better quality services can be provided when they're provided on that basis rather than by big government.