Are you a victim of soft tyranny?
The government has set a standard of tyranny against you that those who disagree with you can and will prevent you from having a job. Your free speech is OK so long as you keep it to yourself. Twin brothers David and Jason Benham know it all too well. Their show on HGTV was cancelled after a militant left wing lobbying group, Right Wing Watch, reported on their comments about homosexuality, abortion and divorce. Sun Trust Bank later dropped the brothers business accounts, then tried to explain it as the fault of a third party vender. Remember Duck Dynasty? Anyone who dares speak out about homosexuality as described in the Bible is subject to such ruin. It’s selective free speech. It’s soft tyranny.
Alexis de Tocqueville defines soft tyranny in his book Democracy in America, Volume II (1840): “It [the government] covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence: it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”
If you are afraid to speak your mind because of the consequences of perhaps losing your job, your livelihood, or that it may invite some government investigation or ruination, you are a victim of soft tyranny. Galatians 5:1 says, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” A free people can only exist by adhering to the precepts of God. Bondage is bondage, whether it is sin or tyranny. We live in a society where a very vocal minority is bullying your Constitutional rights. Moreover, eternally these people face great peril. Isaiah 5:20 says, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness…”
We must speak boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel. Even though many respond with hatred and accuse you based on the very intents of their own hearts, they will not know the truth unless someone tells them. We would not know sin had we not known the laws of God. Don’t be a victim of soft tyranny. Right is greater than might. As Ephesians 6:12-13 says, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against power, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” Soft tyranny is evil. Stand against it.
