Liberty and Responsibility
Liberty and responsibility are two sides of the same coin. You cannot have one without the other. Responsibility can only truly exist when you have the freedom to act, and conversely responsibility is what turns freedom from external control into liberty. In its absence, you get a chaotic animal that merely looks human, and if you let it off the leash, the feral beast will run amok and devastate everything around it.
In more primitive societies without the Founding Fathers’ light, this chaos required an authoritarian boot to uphold order. God’s prior instructions may have helped the Jews and Christians take steps towards the responsibility necessary to enable liberty and a Just Society, but they both required mortal dictators to survive as earthly civilizations. However, rather than see them as a failure, we should accept them for what they are: necessary intermediate steps He used to breed and train men able to accept His next prophecy.
Since Americans embrace responsibility and liberty, the authoritarian boot of earlier governments is unnecessary. Their government can be limited to the essentials, only performing the tasks that individuals can’t do on their own, and focusing on doing them well. This lighter touch allows the Just Society to benefit from the efficiencies of decentralized problem solving, and to avoid the moral and economic costs of the boot.
While this is difficult to achieve, the results speak for themselves. Men with the liberty to take responsible risks produce the innovations that propel society forwards. Healthy competition free of coercion or deception drives men to improve themselves and the world around them. And of course, good men, free of corrupt mortal authorities, are empowered to find their own way to God.