A view of a crowded street in Harare, Zimbabwe

MUSTAFA KAMACI/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES

BY RUFARO MANYEPA • DECEMBER 6, 2023

What’s the difference between developing and developed countries? For most people who have only lived in a developed country, there’s a lot of guesswork involved. Even those who have visited a Third World country have only a rudimentary understanding of the differences.

Some differences are obvious. Hunger, poverty and disease are most commonly found in Third World countries. Poor infrastructure, despotic rulership and inefficient service delivery are the bread and butter of developing nations. Most people have seen news reports or charity commercials attesting as much.

But there is another less obvious difference.

I have lived in Zimbabwe and the United States of America. Zimbabwe is one of the poorest, least developed countries in the world. America is the single greatest nation that has ever been.

These two countries represent the worst and the best the world has to offer. The difference between these two nations is the difference between lawfulness and lawlessness.

The Rules of the Road

At the Trumpet, we speak about lawlessness often: the administrative lawlessness destroying America, the political corruption, the moral degradation and economic quagmire.

But let’s talk about something America does well: driving.

Even in developed countries, driving can be perilous and stressful. I have only driven in Zimbabwe and America. But many highly developed countries have reputations for terrible driving.

America’s road network, though, is a work of genius. It is a result of precise planning and logical thinking. The interstate system, the brainchild of President Dwight Eisenhower, is one of the world’s most efficient travel mechanisms. Whether embarking on a cross-country road trip or simply commuting to work, driving is easy in America.

In Zimbabwe, it’s closer to an extreme sport. The roads are treacherous. Potholes are the rule, not the exception, testing the most seasoned drivers. New roads haven’t been built in decades, meaning heavy traffic is the order of the day.

But what really makes a difference is the drivers themselves. The average Zimbabwean driver does not care about the law. During a traffic jam, it is common to see drivers circumvent traffic by driving on the shoulder or commandeering the lane for oncoming traffic.

Where there are only two lanes, drivers create five. They know the police don’t care; 90 percent of a policeman’s job is doing traffic stops to check if drivers have purchased radio licenses.

That’s actually in Zimbabwe’s Constitution. Police enforce that law, but they don’t enforce the traffic laws.

In Zimbabwe, it’s almost impossible to relax while driving. You might be in the outer lane, but that won’t stop a car from driving on the shoulder next to you. You might be glad your road home has no heavy traffic, but that won’t stop a car from entering your lane and driving headfirst into you unless you pull over and let it pass.

Normalizing Lawlessness

Developed countries aren’t monolithic. There are good cities to drive in and bad ones to drive in. There are lawful areas and lawless areas. But the overall trend is one that began with more lawfulness than lawlessness.

But for Zimbabweans, bad driving is normal. Lawlessness is normal.

It wasn’t this way while it was still named Southern Rhodesia. It is the result of a culture of lawlessness created by Zimbabwe’s despotic leadership. It is the result of a Constitution that gives the government as much power as possible.

As a result, Zimbabweans are used to lawlessness. They are used to poor service delivery, potholed roads, a failing economy, living in filth, darkness and poverty. They are used to unrestrained leaders who routinely lie, cheat, steal and use violence.

Strange as it might sound, Americans are in a similar situation.

America’s Bible-based Constitution was ratified in 1787 to guide the nation’s government. It delineated the separation of powers, individual rights and mechanisms for amendments.

Most of my experiences in America were marked by trust in government institutions as they upheld the rule of law. Exceptions were a direct result of rulers promoting lawlessness so they could take more power.

Today, these rulers are normalizing lawlessness. The left—which controls the media, entertainment and pop culture—has branded conservative values as antiquated, racist, backward, primitive, defunct, irrelevant and burdensome. The left has also expertly branded its own values as positive, progressive, tolerant, loving, pro-equality and pro-choice.

Right is wrong. Up is down. And Americans are getting used to it.

In 1970, 67 percent of Americans ages 25 to 49 were living with their spouse and one or more children younger than 18. That is now at 37 percent.

More couples are unmarried, having children outside of wedlock, and engaging in homosexuality. Fewer Americans are religious, and unsurprisingly, 96 percent of atheists support same sex “marriage.”

America is getting used to lawlessness.

The End Result of Lawlessness

There is a world of difference between America and Zimbabwe. But both are plagued by a deadly strain of lawlessness. Because of America’s historical association with law and order, its trajectory is even more tragic.

Americans are being bullied into accepting lawlessness.

If you don’t support genocidal groups like Hamas, if you aren’t in favor of murdering babies in their mother’s womb, if you support judging people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin, if you believe in traditional family, then you are lambasted as a racist, Zionist, sexist, bigoted, misogynistic and hateful Nazi.

It’s like obeying the rules of the road and being attacked for it.

Yet too many Americans are happily casting aside the rules of the road. Too many support Hamas, abortion, Black Lives Matter. They support homosexuality, the destruction of the traditional family, and genital mutilation of children.

America is abandoning religion, the Bible and God—and supporting lawlessness.

Worst of all, it is under the guise of promoting freedom from law. The Apostle Peter says this is an erroneous idea of freedom: “They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for whatever overcomes a man, to that he is enslaved” (2 Peter 2:19; Revised Standard Version).

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry writes in No Freedom Without Law:

These individuals promise freedom and liberty—but they never talk about the “law of liberty”! They offer a false freedom—a lawless liberty, which is really slavery. They talk about love, but it is a shallow, meaningless love, not grounded in God’s law.

The U.S. Supreme Court has offered sodomites “liberty.” Instead, they should be giving them the law of liberty. They themselves are servants of corruption and rebellion.

The law is the only thing that offers us freedom. America’s Bible-based Constitution is the reason why it became the freest, single greatest nation on Earth. Its lawlessness is the reason why it is descending into a chaos that will make Zimbabwe’s roads look tame by comparison.

But you can make a change in your life. You can apply God’s law of liberty today and see how the rule of law can make your home and family as great as America once was. To learn more, request Mr. Flurry’s free booklet No Freedom Without Law.