Filed under: academic freedom

American Principle Eleven: Government and Union Monopolies Involving Education or Religion Are Prohibited--For Liberty's Sake

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a 'redress of grievances.'"

Constitution of the United States

 

Education that does not teach the timeless principles recorded in the Declaration of Independence empowers the enemies of life and liberty for the pursuit of happiness.  The delegates to the Constitutional Convention understood this, and they focused upon the fact that governments are by nature a nesting place for tyrants of the mind.

 

It is the collective political power granted to monopoly teacher unions and the establishment of tenure laws that empower the enemies of the family, human dignity, and self-government.  Tenured secular authoritarians have achieved control of curriculum used in the soft sciences and the study of law taught in government schools.  The weapons they use to enforce what must be taught include the ridicule and denigration of the reputation of anyone who dares to challenge leftist political correctness.  The use of the word "science" is code for their atheistic human origins, meaning, and purpose; "diversity" is code for demanding the approval of evil life practices; and "social justice" is code for using government power to force the transfer of wealth from the thrifty to their own block of voters. 

 

It is the competition of education suppliers that reduces inefficiencies in  government-run schools and helps restrain moral pollution by tenured government radicals.  The debasement of morality evident in the tragic church-state monopoly of Medieval Europe compares with the moral decline that started with government establishment of teacher unions.  First-amendment law intended to prevent the suppression of the right of parents to choose between competing education suppliers for their children's education are superior to all other laws--national, state, and local.

 

The indispensable role of education and religious liberty in the preservation of American principles for government is "self-evident."  Education that leaves new generations viewing government as some vague entity leaves them confused about truth.  They are then easy prey for manipulation by what Jefferson called "tyrants of the mind."  Definite and specific American principles for government of a responsible nature do exist.  Fifteen of them are my current focus of this blog.  

 

Education worthy of the name will emphasize that government is the servant of and for the people, the sovereigns under creation's God.

 

A full discussion of these vital American Principles can be found in my book, Restoring Education Central to American Greatness.

 

For more information or to purchase the book:

http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000185969/Restoring-Education-Cen...

http://www.amazon.com/Restoring-Education-Greatness-Principles-Liberated/dp/1...

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/restoring-education-david-a-norris/1103308053...

 

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Tyranny

 

Censorship of Christmas in Public Schools

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Permit me one interruption of my discussion of immortal American Principles ...

 

Secular militants have shut down ideological competition by preventing religious, political and academic freedom on many campuses throughout the nation.  Haters of citizen self-government in America are effectively muting the voices of tens of thousands of concerned citizens.  

 

The war against the Judeo-Christian foundation for American law, self-government and the spirit of liberty extends beyond leftist radical censorship of American history and foundational American beliefs from public school textbooks.  "A decorated pine tree in the Ames High School cafeteria has been taken down because of complaints from a high school employee and some parents" (The Tribune, December 4, 2010).  Reporting the words of the school Superintendent, "We are in the business of educating students.  I didn't want this [decorated pine tree] to become a distraction … so we decided it would be best to take down the tree."  His frankness about a few people who were intolerant of a pine tree within the sight of students is commendable.  The tree was in the school for the traditional Christmas season, but apparently they dared not even call it a Christmas tree.

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It is needful that we reject the spirit of rebellion and enjoin the spirit of truth that empowers man to storm the strongholds of evil.  It is spiritual wisdom that enabled this nation to become the most blessed civilization in history.  The restoration of spiritual glory--the potential to reassert our culture's values of freedom, education, prosperity, and truth--is at hand.

Merry Christmas to all"In this was manifested the love of God toward us,

because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world,

that we might live through Him."

(I John 4:9)

Our Hands Are Tied ... By Teacher Unions

The loss of citizen control over what our nation’s youth are taught in the behavioral studies hinges on two teachers’ tenure contract paragraphs demanded by union bosses when negotiating with local school boards.  The first devastating paragraph provides teacher tenure guarantees that supersede the authority of school administrators to replace employees.  The second harmful paragraph makes it a crime to disclose bad teacher performance to the public or to other schools that are considering hiring the teacher until costly and lengthy legal proceedings have approved such disclosure.

Professionals like medical doctors, engineers, plumbers, and airline pilots—vital to our society—do not have tenure guarantees.  Yet what is being taught to America’s youth is of even greater importance.

The unionization of teachers and accompanying tenure law have enabled a small cadre of radicals to enforce their attacks against God in education. Newt Gingrich stated:  “Those who want absolute proof you cannot teach American history honestly and accurately without reference to God, go to the Lincoln Memorial and read where in Lincoln’s second inaugural, March 1865, he referred to God fourteen times and used two quotes from the Bible.”

Benjamin Franklin, a delegate from Pennsylvania to the second Continental Congress and signer of the Constitution of the United States, wrote about the First Principle in his Articles of Belief:  “ I believe there is one supreme, most perfect Being …  Also when I stretch my imagination through and beyond our system of planets, beyond the visible fixed stars themselves, into that space that is [in] every way infinite, and conceive it filled with suns like ours, each with a chorus of worlds forever moving around him; then this little ball on which we move, seems, even in my narrow imagination, to be almost nothing, and myself less than noghing, and of no sort of consequence … That I may be preserved from atheism … Help me, O Father!... For all Thy innumerable benefits; for life, and reason … My good God, I thank thee!”

Benjamin Franklin, “Articles of Belief,” in The American Ideal of 1776, ed. Hamilton Albert Long(Philadelphia:  Heritage Books, 1963), p. 5.

Lincoln_memorial

 

As Justice Brandeis said, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

The American states did not become united until the constitutional delegates agreed to amendments that were specific about religious and educational freedom from government and nongovernment dictation.  The first ten amendments included the codification of the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence (separation from authoritarian rule).  Far from being secular, all aspects of human endeavor, including government, fall under the purview of creation’s God.  The value system for determining the proper role of laws and the use of government power is clear.  We ought to obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29).  Adoption of this morally-specific, nonsectarian, God-honoring predicate has served as a marvelous unifier for our diverse immigrant nation.

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We no longer have public education.  In the behavioral and political sciences it has become government education comparable to the monopoly state doctrine that decimated Medieval Europe.

The secular militants claim to be patriots because, as they say, dissent is American.  What they mean is evident from how they have gutted traditional American values in public education.  They demand freedom for themselves but reject the American concept of academic freedom (the freedom to be honestly informed) and the freedom of others to make their own choices.  The soft underbelly of the secular left is the fact that they cannot withstand the competition of ideas.  For them, it is intolerable to allow students to learn of the God of creation alongside their atheistic lifeview.

An elaboration of “In God We Trust” is found in Proverbs 3:5-6:  “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

The “In God We Trust” worldview has been the foundation for public education, beginning in the original thirteen colonies and continuing for over 250 years.  Tragically, the Supreme Court ruling in the Everson v. Board of Education decision of 1947 began a dramatic shift away from “In God We Trust.” 

Stay tuned for more discussion about socialism, civic religion and a strategy for restoring competition in education and choice by the people …

 

 

 

 

 

 

Secular? What Does THAT Mean?

It is necessary to reestablish the meaning of some key words in the educational debate.  This is because of the persistent dishonesty of radicals who migrated into the soft sciences* of universities and public schools saddled by tenure guarantees (which crept silently into collective bargaining laws starting in the early 1970s).

“Old European secular philosophy” is a general term that includes the many sects championed by God-rejecting intellectuals in Europe.  The traditional American use of the word “secular” is different ~ it was used to distinguish national, state, and local governments from church governments.  These governments, though not in themselves religious, were foundationally directed within a greater context that respected the values and will of God.

This has become too confusing for modern-day use on two counts.  First, used by radicals, the word “secular” leaves people blindsided to the fact that the science of their agenda is driven by deception and insistence on an atheistic-secular worldview monopoly.  Secondly, their atheistic worldview IS religious, with a deeply held Darwinian view about the origin and meaning of life.  In 1961, the Supreme Court in Torcaso v. Watkins classified secular humanism (the title used by secular militants in academia) as a religion.  To avoid the misleading use of the word “secular,” we suggest there are times that the phrase atheistic-secular be used.  Instead of being secular-authoritarian based, the American predicate for determining public policy is impartial, higher-authority and morality-based.

American conservatism transcends both the good and evil intentions of today’s adherents to the old European secular philosophy—the religious and political left.  Revisionist morality, supported by the Darwinian theory for life’s origin, meaning, and purpose, represents one of the greatest evils of our time.**  A focus upon the danger to American liberty can be narrowed to those who are at the seat of the problem—secular militarists.

*The soft sciences include literature, journalism, education strategies, political science, life-origins biology, life-origins geology, history, law studies, religion, social studies, arts, psychology and ecology.

**Charles Darwin published his theory for a God-rejecting worldview in the book The Origin of Species, published in 1859.  There is some adaptation within species, but the Herculean efforts of science pretenders to find evolution between species fail.  Sir Arthur Keith, a leading evolutionist has written:  “Evolution is unproved and unprovable.  We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation which is unthinkable” (Sir Arthur Keith, as citation in Wallie A. Criswell’s Did Man Just Happen? Grand Rapids MI:  Zondervan, 1972, p. 73).  D. M. S. Watson acknowledged the same in Nature, vol. 124, August 10, 1929, pp. 231-234. 

 

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A Conservative's Tribute to Mikhail Gorbachev

That the God of creation is man’s benefactor is so foundational it cannot be arrived at by any other proposition.  It is the basic principle upon which all other principles follow.  When man chooses to walk according to God’s benevolent law, he learns of the power that is God’s alone and by which God grants him victory over evil.

Those who persist in the fantasy of revisionist morality (moral relativism) and a central government that compromises the people’s right to be fully informed have, in fact, ignored the irreversible laws of creation’s nature.  When liberal majorities on the Supreme Court and secular educators fail to uphold the God-honoring predicate of the US Constitution, they are, in effect, empowering atheistic revisionism that preys on societies.

At a United Nations forum, December 7, 1988, Mikhail Gorbachev, atheist leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991, repudiated the atheistic dogma shared by Karl Marx and Charles Darwin.  Reflecting upon the disintegration of the secular (progressive) system, Gorbachev said:  “The compelling necessity of the principle of freedom of choice is … clear to us.  The failure to recognize this … is fraught with very dire consequences ... Freedom of choice is a universal principle to which there should be no exceptions.  We have not come to the conclusion of the immutability of this principle simply through good motives.  We have been led to it through impartial analysis of the objective processes of our time.  This objective fact presupposes respect for other people’s views“ (George P. Schultz, Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan, Turmoil and Triumph, New York:  Macmillan, 1993, p. 1107).

Failure to acknowledge the benevolent laws of God and conform to moral truth guarantees harmful consequences.  Gorbachev tried to prevent its collapse by relaxing socialistic rule.  To do this, he adopted perestroika and glasnost (which allowed the people to be informed and free to communicate) and property rights, but socialism had gone too far.  Beginning in 1989, the puppet Communist governments in captive countries controlled by the Soviets were overthrown by the people.  The Soviet Union fell apart when captive countries quit sending them the revenue required to keep the socialist economy afloat.

Gorbechev

Writing of perestroika, Gorbachev’s wife Raisa said:  “Our society has set out on the path of renewal and of demolishing totalitarianism and the obsolete command system of administering the country” (Raisa Gorbachev, Reminiscences and Reflections, Harper Collins, 1991, p. 174).

Whether or not Gorbachev realized it, the Soviet empire was being forced to acknowledge that those who reject the “sovereignty of man under God over government” run into the immutable laws of creation’s nature.  Those laws support life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  In contrast, the vacillating laws of man lead to exploitation, cultural decay, poverty, and tyranny.  When God’s benevolent provision is rejected in any particular, the rejecter bears the price of that sin against himself and the will of God.  

 

Restoring Education Central to American Greatness: Fifteen Principles That Liberated Mankind from the Politics of Tyranny By David A. Norris

“As one of the tens of thousands who admire the action of your Grand Jury, I wish to commend Foreman Norris and his jury for their courageous and true Americanism in focusing public attention on the perverted minority… who would destroy what we have… in America and deliver us unto our enemies.” (E. Allen, Burlington, North Dakota, letter to the Nevada Iowa Journal)

 

Ames, Iowa – (AP) – The Grand Jury wants “moral pollution’… “and defamation of our country ( in the Humanities curriculum) stopped.” (Denver Post)

 

Posterous theme by Cory Watilo