The Attorney General of the United States; Jeff Sessions, recently expressed the radical opinion that people should obey laws and that government is good for social order. He compounded the inflamatory rhetoric of his extremist point of view in citing Biblical scripture to support the point. A constellation of mainstream godless atheist media publications soundly rejected his scripture quotes and provided much scripture to indicate the Bible supports their mainstream left-corporatist hatred of Jeff Sessions and all things Donald Trump'd.
“Illegal entry into the United States is a crime — as it should be,” he said. “Persons who violate the law of our nation are subject to prosecution. I would cite you to the apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order.”
Government may or may not be good. Hugo Grotius in 1625 examined that problem of laws being a good or bad thing in his paper The Laws of War and Peace...
"For you, who know the fate of men and gods, What is, what shall be, shameful would it be To know not what is just.
3. Such a work is all the more necessary because in our day, as in former times, there is no lack of men who view this branch of law with contempt as having no reality outside of an empty name. On the lips of men quite generally is the saying of Euphernus, which Thucydides quotes, that in the case of a king or imperial city nothing is unjust which is expedient. Of like implication is the statement that for those whom fortune favors might makes right, and that the administration of a state cannot be carried on without injustice.
Furthermore, the controversies which arise between peoples or kings generally have Mars as their arbiter. That war is irreconcilable with all law is a view held not alone by the ignorant populace; expressions are often let slip by well-informed and thoughtful men which lend countenance to such a view. Nothing is more common than the assertion of antagonism between law and arms. Thus Ennius says:
Not on grounds of right is battle joined, But rather with the sword do men Seek to enforce their claims.
Horace, too, describes the savage temper of Achilles in this wise:
Laws, he declares, were not for him ordained; By dint of arms he claims all for himself.
Another poet depicts another military leader as commencing war with the words:
Here peace and violated laws I leave behind."
Antigonus when advanced in years ridiculed a man who brought to him a treatise on justice when he was engaged in besieging cities that did not belong to him. Marius declared that the din of arms made it impossible for him to hear the voice of the laws. Even Pompey, whose expression of countenance was so mild, dared to say: ‘When I am in arms, am I to think of laws?’"
Jeff Sessions cited the Bible in support of his radical notion that government is a good thing. If it was that does not mean that governments cannot do wrong. One need merely consider the governments of Bill Clinton and Adolph Hitler to realize that.
In theory, governments do exist for social order and it is incumbent upon citizens of a democracy to obey laws and respect their own self-governing structure. A government needs to upgrade its administrative laws in response to new external challenges to its existence. Illegal immigration and foreign invasion are external challenges to social order.
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