David Theroux, founder and president of The Independent Institute and the C.S. Lewis Society of California, recently gave a very thoughtful lecture titled “C.S. Lewis on Mere Liberty and the Evils of Statism.” David’s perceptive analysis of Lewis’s critique of “government as God” is well worth viewing. The Left continually tells us it knows what’s best and “cares” for us. Lewis’s riposte to this pretentious excuse for metastasizing state power is compelling: “Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” Take some time to watch David Theroux exposit this key insight and be reminded once again of the wisdom not only of C.S. Lewis but of America’s Founders: We have a limited government precisely because “absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
