​In Book VII, Chapter 9 of Politics by Aristotle it states, “Now, since we are here speaking of the best form of government, i.e. that under which the state will be most happy (and happiness, as has been already said, cannot exist without virtue),….leisure is necessary both for the development of virtue and the performance of political duties.”
I have been pondering this idea for a while.  I have more leisure in my life than most of the people who have lived in the world.  I am not well off financially, but I do have many things that make my life much easier than other generations.  I have running water, electricity and many machines that make my life very comfortable.  I have appreciated this for many years.  I am SO BLESSED.    I am not well off financially compared to many, but I have not wondered about my next meal, or how to stay warm.   I have so much more leisure in my life than many others.  So, what have I done with that leisure?
When I was a young adult my focus was on getting a career.  I have worked since I was 14 years old to earn the money I wanted to live my way.  I was driven to work and go to school.  I burned both ends of the candle trying to get where I thought I would be successful.  During the process of this, I changed my mind about what was most important after having my first child.  I stopped focusing on how to get ahead in the world and focused on who to help my children get all that was good.  This next journey focusing on what was best for my children brought me to homeschooling.  During this process, I was introduced to the ideas of TJEd and Leadership Education.  My conversion was slow, but I shifted again toward the Leadership Education Model.  I started educating myself.  It has been wonderful.  I can say that since that for the most part I have been using my leisure time much better.  I look back and see how much I learned and am learning, and it has been a wonderful journey.   I still have many things still to do but I have enjoyed the journey.  There are times I have been discouraged and time wasting of course but overall, I still feel that I have done well with my leisure time. 
The part I keep tossing around in my head right now is the last part of the quote:  “and the performance of political duties.”  What will I choose to do?   I agree with many parts of Politics. Which leads me toward my next question:  What are my political duties?  Why?
I tried to ignore this but then I read in Chapter 15: “and those who cannot face danger like men are slaves to any invader.”   I don’t want to be a slave to any invader therefore I must make some decisions on how to act upon the knowledge I have.  

This book goes really well with the essay "The Law"  by Bastiat.  The author actually uses many quotes from the essay.  

One of the quotes that I like from the Law is:  "The law is collective force organized to oppose injustice." A very concise and clear definition of what law should be. When you take this definition to the introduction of the Declaration of Independence you have a clear idea of what injustice is.

There is also a clearer set of explanations of the 5 Laws of Decline that are in the book LeaderShift.   Along with this idea (laws of decline) is listed the 6 duties of society. 

As I ponder what my biggest take away is, I keep coming back to the idea that all good government MUST start in the home.   There are two basic ways to set up your family system - through persuasion or force.  Depending on your personal beliefs you will practice and teach either the ideas.    In our homes we learn to balance the ideas of chaos (no force) and coercion (absolute force).  The only way that we will be able to have a home of harmony and agreement is to education our self in many areas and then practice those ideas.  We need to know when and how to use persuasion and force correctly and in ways that promote our personal growth and freedoms along with how to keep harmony in the home.   Once we are able to establish harmony in our home we can then take those principles to society and help society to establish justice.   In our home we create rules or laws to help us establish safety and justice.  It is the same with society, laws are just a bit more complex since it involves more people and different beliefs (which is why written, clear laws are so important in societies).   For government to be truly justice it must begin in the home and then move out toward the community.

I have been reading John Locke's "Concerning Civil Government, 2nd Essay" and "A Letter Concerning Tolerance" this week. Very good reading. Here is just one of the many nuggets from "Concerning Civil Government", Chapter 9: the power of the society or legislative constituted by them can never be supposed to extend farther than the common good, but is obliged to secure every one's property... (#131)”.

More Thoughts on Locke’s Essays
As I was reading the Declaration of Independence again last night a section caused me to think and question what is meant. The sentence: That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness".
In the past I read right on over that without once questioning it. Yesterday, I questioned what was the intent of safety? Today so many laws or orders have been given in the name of "safety" that I really struggle with the idea that we should have all this regulation to keep up "safe". What was the original intent? Can you really keep people safe? How? When have things gotten out of balance? The idea that comes to mind as I studied the wording of the Declaration is that Safety AND Happiness are to balance each other. This leads to another question: How is that balance measured and achieved?
 According to Ebenstein & Ebenstein (Great Political Thinkers), the Declaration is "pure Locke" and many of the main ideas of the Constitution and Declaration are based on Locke’s ideas. Therefore, I turned back to Locke in order to find his definition of safety. In Concerning Civil Government he writes: "...the end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings, capable of laws, where there is no law there is no freedom" (Chapter 6, #57). He continues: "The great and chief end, therefore, of men uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property; (Chapter 9 #124)......the power of the society or legislative constituted by them can never be supposed to extend farther than the common good, but is obliged to secure every one's property... (#131)”.
 Whenever Locke talks about safety and security in either "A Letter Concerning Toleration" or "Concerning Civil Government, Second Essay" it seems to be in connection with protecting the property and labors of man and to protect or deliver the people from "subjection of a foreign power" (Concerning Civil Government, Chapter 19 #217). In Locke’s writings he always talks about the limits that should be placed on the government. The idea that the law should be applied equally to all, that it must not be oppressive or based on personal whims, that the consent of the people need to be involved and that the legislature must not transfer its lawmaking power to anybody else. (Great Political Thinkers p. 432)
When you take all of this into account and refer back to the statement in the Declaration, I can see that government’s foundation should be for the Safety and Happiness of the people. I think without understanding the ideas that Locke taught and the extremely important idea of that he stated were necessary to protect the people these ideas can be taken and abused as they have been in recent years by our government officials. We the people have forgotten that we do not have to consent to all the government says. And that it is our job to make sure that the government does not overstep its powers. Many of the changes that have occurred in the last year have not been laws set up by the legislature but by the judicial and executive branches. And because we have not followed the pattern set up by our Founding Fathers both the safety and happiness of all people are out of balance.  The law is not being applied equally to all, is based on personal whims and is oppressive to some.  It is also not law; it is based on orders that have not been voted on.  Unfortunately that is because we the people have consented to follow past orders and judgments setting a precedent that said it was okay for other officials outside of our elective representatives to determine laws.  If we had all read John Locke’s writings in High School, would we have a different government then we do today?

As I read the Five Thousand Year Leap (FYL) the idea that I feel is the most important issue is principle #1 and 2.  You can’t have principle #2 without the idea that there is a natural law and a  divine law that we are obligated to understand and follow.  As I read further and further through the book, my thoughts kept returning to principle #2.  If the people are not a virtuous and morally strong people then freedom is not likely to exist. You can have good kings and bad kings.  You can have other government system that are good and bad.   But when you have a group of people that do not believe in the ideas of private and public virtue others will always take over the government. 
 
Quoting from FYL p. 235: "The centralization of political power always destroys liberty by removing the decision-making function from the people on the local level and transferring it to the officers of the central government.  This process gradually benumbs the spirit of "voluntarism" among the people, and they lose the will to solve their own problems.  They also cease to be involved in community affairs.  They seek the anonymity of oblivion in the seething crowds of the city and often degenerate into faceless automatons who have neither a voice nor a vote". 
 
I am guilty of that; I have left problems of the community for others to deal with.  Of course, I was not taught differently so I am not overly surprise that I am not involved more in the community.   But returning back to the idea of a virtuous and moral people.  The miraculous part of the American Government is that by setting up the government with many layers that check and balance each other within each layer and by each layer you can delay the collapse of the government longer.   When the spirit of public virtue is not as strong, when people are turning to the government to fix their problems, there are still checks in place to slow down the centralization of the power, so the people still have some liberties.  All of the principles after #1-2 are needed to deal with the conditions where the people are not strongly virtuous and moral. 
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What an amazing document the Declaration and Constitution are when you take in light how long they have held together a people that has slowly been neglecting its responsibility toward themselves and their neighbors.

This is a quote that really struck me.
“They use your love of virtue as a hostage. They know that you’ll bear anything in order to work and produce, because you know that achievement is man’s highest moral purpose, that he can’t exist without it, and your love of virtue is your love of life.”—Francisco d’Anconia (p. 570)


This quote struck me because I had allowed a couple of people to do this to me.  I had let them use me.  I had wrongly thought that they were friends for years but then there was an incident that occurred in my life and was shocked to find out their true opinions of me were not of friends but instead to get something they wanted from me.  Seeing this idea expressed in this book in several different ways helped to understand that some people are just this way and it is not you personally it is because it is who they are.
​There are many ideas in this book that I really connected to.  I had experiences that I could relate to.  Though I do not agree with how this problem with solved, there are very many true ideas and principles.  There are also so many things are and have occurred in the world I live in.

I was trying to think about what it was that I gained from reading this book another time.  I noticed as I was reading this book the idea of bent v. broken and that reminded me of the type of books we read.  I noticed that the story is about leaving morals behind for science.  Leaving behind the pure, the simple, and even the advances we have for the sake of progress and science. That is a pattern that has seen before.  The thing that really struck me was connected to a talk that I listened to by Oliver DeMille on Natural Laws.  The topic was about looking for how books relate to the 12 Natural Laws.   When I went to see how many Natural Laws that CS Lewis referred to I was a bit surprised...there were many!


Quick notes about the 12 Natural Laws (Natural laws = revealed law and scientific law)
​1.  Law of Supremacy - What is supreme?
2.  Law of Authority - Who protects the law?  Reason for the government?
3.  Law of Limits - Do the laws protect natural law? inalienable rights?
4.  Law of Delegation - What do we do when we see wrong?  Do we delegate our responsibility?
5.  Law of Force - What type of force is the government using?
6.  Law of Decline- When we violate natural law it leads to a lack of respect to people and law leading to disdain.  Do we see hateful actions?  **Law of the Harvest
7.  Law of Power (Power v. Energy) - Who is trying to dominate?  Where are the gaps in power?
8.  Law of Gaps - Do we create/keep gaps in government power or do we eliminate gaps?
9.  Law of the Vital Few - Few ordinary people who do extraordinary things - Who do we choose to lead us?
10.  Law of Liberty - Who is losing power?
11.  Law of Economy - Power at the lowest level - Who is responsible for our duties and rights?
12.  Law of Progress - Need the freedom to grow & progress - Who controls our actions - You or someone else?