Fear is powerful. Improperly applied, fear can cause us to make irrational choices without thinking. 

The difference is what we fear. As Proverbs 9:10 states, “Fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.” 

A healthy fear is critical to success in all facets of life. Of course, it is very easy to fear the wrong things and that can lead to some very poor outcomes.

We need not look any further than politics. I have come to believe that many of the foolish decisions in the American government arise from the simple fact that too many politicians have too little fear of the voters and taxpayers. 

Consider specifically at the Texas Legislature. The politicians have for too long very clearly feared the lobbyists, bureaucrats, and even their colleagues more than they fear their voters and taxpayers at home.  

If this were not so, for example, they would have rushed to end the corporate welfare programs opposed by both parties and overwhelming majorities of citizens. Instead, Republican and Democrat lawmakers have yet again fallen over each other in finding new ways to siphon cash from the taxpayers’ wallets into the pockets of corporate cronies.

Similarly, Republicans would have banned the lobby-endorsed practice of appointing Democrats to chair key legislative committees rather than lie to their constituents about the process.

And yet those politicians, those lobbyists, those corporate cronies… they are all just taking advantage of the sycophantic culture we as voters have allowed to fester. If politicians feared the voters more than the lobbyists and their corrupt colleagues, Texas would be different. Texas would be better.

Corporate welfare simply wouldn’t exist. School choice would have been established. Property taxes would be significantly lower if not abolished. Taxpayer-funded lobbying would have been banned. And Democrats would no longer control vast swaths of legislative power in the GOP-dominated chamber.

All that would have happened already if the politicians feared the citizens more than each other and their lobbyist pals. Why don’t they? That is our fault.

As citizens, we have failed to inspire sufficient fear in our elected servants. We fawn over “our party’s” politicians like royalty. We’ve allowed them to think they, rather than the citizens, are masters of this republic.

Too many citizens fail to even participate in elections. And even fewer of our neighbors bother to take the steps necessary to hold politicians truly accountable for their actions and inactions. The downward spiral of cause and effect blur, with the result being lawmakers who don’t sufficiently fear the citizenry.

It’s up to us, as citizens, to inspire in our elected servants greater fear than the lobby and the bureaucracy. Rather than accept table scraps, we as citizens must unwaveringly demand that politicians seek the voters’ approval and the voters’ approval alone.

The future of our republic depends on it.