Constitution Revolution: What's Human Nature Got To Do With It?

This post is part of a weekly Constitution Revolution series that will cover the entire Constitution and many of the principles it was founded on. Click here for last week’s lesson.

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Last week I discussed why it’s so important to understand how the world works if we want to be successful in anything we do. Well the single most important aspect of how the world works to understand when it comes to government, is human nature.

Basically, human nature is the way that human beings tend to behave naturally. And as we all know, human nature is flawed. We tend to be greedy, we tend to be selfish, we are easily corrupted by power, and on and on.

Because of that, as I explained this weekend on TheBlaze Radio’s Chris Salcedo Show, we cannot make decisions about our government based on what we think politicians should do, but rather on what we know our politicians will do:

Human nature is going to be there whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. People - and more importantly our politicians - will be tempted to be greedy. They will be tempted to be selfish. That’s just how the world works. If we create our Constitution without taking those facts into account, the flaws in human nature will undermine and destroy it.

We don’t have to rely just on common sense either; Patrick Henry pointed out that history will teach us this lesson as well:

“Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty!”

But despite how obvious and basic this concept might seem, we continue to disregard it.

We know that power is a corrupting force in this world. It’s just a fact of life. When people are given great amounts of power, it’s extremely difficult for those people not to allow that power to change them. That tells us that we don’t want to concentrate large amounts of power in the hands of one person or one group of people.

But what have we done for the last 100 years?

We continue to transfer more and more power to the federal government; and more specifically, into the office of the president. We shouldn’t be surprised by any of the corruption that has been taking place in Washington, D.C. It’s perfectly consistent with human nature.

[sharequote align="center"]If we continue to allow our federal government to grow, we should expect the corruption to get worse[/sharequote]

If we continue to allow our federal government to grow, we should only expect the corruption to get worse. We would be foolish to expect anything else.

So the lesson this week is very simple. Human nature is flawed and we need to take that into account whenever we do anything related to government. That’s why our Constitution has been so effective and why it is still relevant today - it was designed to deal with our unchanging human nature.

Chad Kent is an author and speaker with a unique style that makes the Constitution simple and fun. Listen to Chad every Saturday during The Chris Salcedo Show on TheBlaze Radio and visit his web site at www.ChadKentSpeaks.com.

Feature Image: Shutterstock

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