Filed under: Declaration of Independence

America's Civic Religion in Light of Its Documents

America has a civic religion.  In 1952, Justice William O. Douglas wrote, "We are a religious people and our institutions presuppose a Supreme Being."*  Note that this is different from the personal faith of individuals--their manner of worship, fellowship and practice.  This is civic religion--religion embedded in our government.

 

The natural-law philosophy, our civic religion foundational to the American constitution, is in direct conflict with secular law.  An example of this would be the secular law of open-mindedness required of teachers by Professor John Dewey (John S. Brubacher and Willis Rudy, Higher Education Transition, New York: Harper and Row, 1958, 310).  It blindsides students to the horrific differences between good and evil and causes them to go along with the pagan laws of man contrived by liberal judges, legislators and educators.

 

The Declaration of Independence (1776), the Articles of Confederation (drafted 1777, ratified 1781) and the Constitution (ratified 1788) have been classified as the most important American charters.  Collectively they received a total of 143 signatures from 118 people.  By their affirmations, these individuals represented themselves to be believers in the providence of God, and they did so at the risk of being hung by British soldiers.

 

In a letter from Benjamin Rush to John Adams, Rush says of that fateful day when the Declaration of Independence was signed, "Do you recollect the pensive and awful silence which pervaded the house when we were called up, one after another, to the table of the President of Congress to subscribe what was believed by many at that time to be our own death warrants?  The silence and the gloom of the morning were interrupted, I well recollect, only for a moment by Colonel [Benjamin] Harrison of Virginia, who said to Mr. [Elbridge] Gerry at the table:  'I shall have a great advantage over you, Mr. Gerry, when we are all hung for what we are now doing.  From the size and weight of my body I shall die in a few minutes, but from the lightness of your body you will dance in the air an hour or two before you are dead.'  This speech procured a transient smile, but it was soon succeeded by the solemnity with which the whole business was conducted…"**  Out of the 56 signers of the Declaration, 29 held seminary degrees.***

 

Professor Donald S. Lutz of the University of Houston describes a ten-year study during which he and others assembled the writings and deliberations of the American Founding Fathers.****  The study brought into focus important sources that were used when determining priorities for the American constitution.  Aside from quotations from the Bible, the writings of Montesquieu, Blackstone and Locke were the sources relied upon most by the Founding Fathers.

 

Montesquieu's best-known work was The Spirit of Laws.  He emphasized the importance of separating personnel and duties for the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government.  The purpose of this separation of power was to prevent abuse of the people's rights as sovereigns over government (Isaiah 33:22; Jeremiah 17).  Blackstone emphasized the Law of Nature (man's nature both before and after the fall) and Revealed Law (Scripture).  His Commentaries on the Common Law of England was especially practical for the new nation.  Locke,  born into a Puritan family and son of a lawyer, provided the "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" and two treatises "On Civil Government."  His "life, liberty, or property" phrase is in both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.

 

The chief source for the Founding Fathers' understanding was the Bible.  It was cited three times more often than were these three men combined.  Thirty-four percent of all ideas referred to by the constitutional delegates came directly from the Old and New Testament books.  Furthermore, 60 percent of the references to opinions of Montesquieu, Blackstone and Locke were drawn from the Bible.  The most frequently quoted book was the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy.

 

"The fundamental basis of this Nation's law was given to Moses on the Mount.  The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings which we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul.  I don't think we emphasize that enough these days."*****

Harry S. Truman

 

Governments and authoritarians are not the source of man's rights.  Government is but a tool that should be used to protect man's right to worship creation's God.  This impartial Creator of life ordained and established the unalienable human rights outlined in the Declaration of Independence that demand representative governments to follow the rule of established law, not the arbitrary rule of man.  Legislators, administrators and judges who use laws (the power of government) to establish religious, ideological or employee union monopolies are fascistic.****** 

 

 

"The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity.  I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God."*******

John Adams

 

Backoftwo

 

 

*Zorach v. Clauson, Docket 431, citation 343 US 306, 1952.

**http://www.constitution.org/primarysources/rushadams.html

***http://rodchaney2012.org/2012/02/11/a-message-from-rod/

****Donald S. Lutz, The Origins of American Constitutionalism (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1988).

*****http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=13707#axzz1t9qVQzTQ

******Fascism is a word used to identify the enemies of representative governments and governments limited for the protection of the people's freedom to be informed and to choose.

*******http://christianity.about.com/od/independenceday/a/foundingfathers.htm

 

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Ban the Ten Commandments? What For?

The laws of creation's nature include the perimeters for civil behavior provided by the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5).  Because of the universal benefits that come from applying the Commandments, they are a common part of the moral religions throughout the world.  Prior to the time that supremacist judges embraced the intolerance of a tiny minority (the laws of man), the rest of us had the benefits that come when the Commandments were emphasized in the schools and on public properties throughout the nation.

 

 

Americans recognize that the promotion of life-building attitudes is important, but that it is not right to punish harmful attitudes that have not been expressed by criminal actions.  "We, The People" places the consequences of attitudes, good or bad, in the hands of God.  He sees and hears all.  Over time, the failure to police one's own thoughts renders severe punishments in direct proportion to the evil committed.  These six commandments pertain directly to such matters of the heart:


You shall have no other gods before Me.

You shall not make for yourself a graven image.

You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Honor your father and mother.

You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey,  nor anything that is your neighbor's.

 

Four of the commandments provide the foundation for civil and criminal law in America:


You shall not murder (the right to life).

You shall not commit adultery (the sanctity of marriage).

You shall not steal (the right to own property).

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor (the right to be truthfully represented).

 

It is citizen support for moral absolutes reflected in the Ten Commandments that promotes the passage of good laws by elected representatives.  It is, exclusively, this moral climate within our society and government that can prevail over the curse of moral relativism practiced by the masters of political deception.

 

 

To justify taxpayer support, educators must teach the truth about the God-honoring Declaration of Independence and Ten Commandments that have enabled Americans to change a wilderness into the greatest nation on earth.

 

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The Paper Trail of Our Constitution II

In 1776, on February 28, George Washington acknowledged a poem written in his honor and sent to him by Phillis Wheatley.  "To His Excellency General Washington"   was the title.  This occurred before the Declaration of Independence was completed and accepted by the Continental Congress.  Who was Phillis Wheatley?  She had been captured in Senegal/Gambia at the age of seven or eight and sold in Boston to John and Susanna Wheatley.  They treated her lovingly as a daughter and taught her to read and write; she even learned Latin.  An accomplished poet, she was an admirer of the minister George Whitefield and a strong supporter of independence from Great Britain.

 

The Northwest Ordinance passed in 1787 by the Continental Congress was helpful as the new constitution was drafted.  It specified the requirements of territories seeking statehood.  The ordinance declared:  "The fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, which form the basis whereon these republics, their laws, and constitutions are erected; to fix and establish those principles as the basis of all laws, constitutions, and governments, which forever hereafter shall be formed in the said territory: to provide also for the establishment of States, and permanent government therein, and for their admission to a share in the federal councils on an equal footing with the original States, at as early periods as may be consistent with the general interest."*

 

Also known as the Freedom Ordinance, the Northwest Ordinance is a rock-solid example of the nonsectarian religious predicate embraced as constitutional law.  When the Articles of Confederation was replaced by a new constitution, the Northwest Ordinance was passed again and became effective under the Constitution.  George Washington signed the Northwest Ordinance back into law on August 7, 1789.  The ordinance also prohibited slavery in any new state, and Article III specified that "Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education, shall forever be encouraged."**

 

"During this same period of time (July 17 to August 7, 1789), the same men who had implemented the Northwest Ordinance were writing the First Amendment to the Constitution [prohibiting government officials from interfering with religious freedom, printing press and education competition]."***

 

In 1792, James Madison, in his Essay, Who Are the Keepers of the People's Liberties?, said, "Although all men are born free, and all nations might be so, yet too true it is, that slavery has been the general lot of the human race.  Ignorant--they have been cheated; asleep--they have been surprised; divided--the yoke has been forced upon them.  But what is the lesson?  That because the people may betray themselves, they ought to give themselves up, blindfold, to those who have an interest in betraying them?  Rather conclude that the people ought to be enlightened, to be awakened, to be united."  Madison served as the fourth president of the United States and is considered to be the principal author of the United States Constitution.  In 1788, he wrote over a third of the Federalist Papers, still the most influential commentary on the Constitution.  James Madison wrote the first ten amendments to the Constitution, also known as the Bill of Rights.  

 

The Declaration of Independence condemned slavery, but it took a war to make it enforceable.  On January 1, 1863, near the end of that war, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation that reversed its momentum.

 

"The consequence is, that happiness of society is the first law of every government.  The people have a right to insist that this rule be observed; and are entitled to demand a moral security that the legislature will observe it.  If they have not the first right, they are slaves; if they have not the second right [moral security], they are, every moment, exposed to slavery" (U.S. Supreme Court Justice James Wilson, Lectures, 1790-91).


Phillis_wheatley

Phillis Wheatley

1753? - 1784

 

*Education Resources Information Center website, ED285786.  Teaching about the US Constitution and the Northwest Ordinance.

**http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Daniel_Webster

***David Barton, Education and the Founding Fathers (Aledo, Texas: Wallbuilder Press, 1993), 4.

****http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/emancipation_proclamation...

 

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NOTE ~ more information on Wheatley at http://www.enotes.com/his-excellency and http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/whea-phi.htm

 

The Paper Trail of Our Constitution

By far the most consequential document for government throughout all history is the Declaration of Independence.  The hitherto inexperienced benefits that enabled America to become the greatest nation on earth rest entirely upon the justification for displacing the rule of man with rule by impartial, God-honoring law.  The Declaration provided the philosophical basis for prohibiting actions by government officials that would interfere with citizen sovereignty under God.  The people who vote in secret and choose like-minded representatives determine the consensus for government action.  Adherence to "self-evident" truths that men are "endowed by their Creator" with "certain unalienable Rights" unleashed citizen creativity and independence from tyranny and trickery of authoritarians in and out of government.

 

On July 8, 1776, the Declaration was read in public for the first time, outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia, accompanied by the ringing of the Liberty Bell.  On August 2, 1776, the members of Congress signed the parchment copy.  It provides the logic and justification for the chain of authority described by Hamilton Albert Long as “man under God over government.”*  The Declaration and citizens' Bill of Rights, added later to the Constitution as the First Amendment, provides the fundamental God-honoring design for government, and the Constitution is the tool for implementing that design.

 

The purpose of government as a tool for, by, and of the people is spelled out in the preamble of the Constitution:  "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare [meaning common needs that do not conflict with the development of work ethic and personal self-reliance] and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

 

One historian points out that the preamble contains seven action words:  form, establish, insure, provide, promote, secure, and ordain.  The Constitution concludes:  "Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the States present on the seventeenth day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven and of the independence [Declaration of Independence, founded upon the sovereignty of the benevolent God of creation and of the Bible] of the United States of America the twelfth [adopted twelve years earlier].  In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names."

 

Until amended by the people, written law holds firm.  It includes the right of trial by one's own peers and the citizen grand jury.  The divine (God-given) right authorizes the people to petition government officials and, if need be, lawfully punish or remove them from office.  The strict boundaries included "no taxation without representation."

 

From 1775 to 1783, the eight-year War for Independence from authoritarian rule was waged.  Its victory was a monumental achievement granted by the providence of God.  The signers of the Declaration of Independence had pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.  Of the fifty-six signers, five were captured by the British as traitors and tortured; twelve had their homes ransacked and burned; two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; and another had two sons captured.  Nine of the fifty-six fought and died from wounds or hardships in the Revolutionary War.  In spite of the suffering, not one of the Founding Fathers ever reneged on his commitment to independence.**

J0410154-570x379

 *www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_history.html

**www.snopes.com/history/american/pricepaid.asp

 

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A Letter To My Grandchildren

More than one of you have faced a challenge from your college professors or spiritual mentors that the War of Independence was "throwing off the government that God has placed upon you."  Some theologians do take that position according to Daniel 2:21, "He changeth the times and the seasons: He removeth kings, and setteth up kings …"  A similar reference to this is, "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers.  For there is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God.  Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God…" (Romans 13:1,2).

 

I would agree ~ IF the King of England had been proceeding according to written law.  

 

Following the British "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 and the ascension of William and Mary as joint monarchs, the proposal to draw up a declaration of subjects' rights and liberties was made in the House of Commons.   The completed declaration was codified as the British citizens' Bill of Rights in 1689.  Among the "ancient rights and liberties" asserted were "the right of the subject to petition the king and prosecutions for petitioning are illegal" as well as "subjects may have arms for their defense suitable to their conditions and allowed by law" and "excessive bail and fines shall not be required and cruel and unusual punishments are not to be inflicted."  There was an internal change of constitution following the excesses of James II.*

 

These laws protected the citizens' right to petition the King without fear of retribution.  He and his subordinates were repeatedly violating this and the citizens' right to freedom.

 

One hundred years later, Edmund Burke (1729-1797), a British statesman and orator, commented on this internal change of the British constitution by saying, "The Revolution was made to preserve our ancient indisputable laws and liberties, and that ancient constitution of government which is our only security for law and liberty."*  He opposed the King's efforts to suppress American independence.  

 

For years our Founding Fathers tried to negotiate reasonableness; but the British response was an iron fist, including the placing of troops on the coast.  Eventually negotiations between the colonists and the King collapsed.  Written like a legal brief, the Declaration of Independence detailed how their rights as British citizens were being violated.  They are "… taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments" (Declaration of Independence).

 

"The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism.  A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position" (President George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796).

 

Government employees are servants of the people who are the sovereigns under God over government.  The American Declaration of Independence and citizens' Bill of Rights, added later to the Constitution, provides the God-honoring design for government, and the Constitution is the tool for implementing that design.

 

Americans concurred with written law resting upon the British references to the Laws of Nature.  It is the governing character of Laws of Nature such as humility, the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments, that lead to success.  This is the sure foundation upon which man's right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" rests.  Called "virtue" by America's Founding Fathers, the impartial and divine element frees man to do what is right.  "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Corinthians 3:17).

 

I identify with and support the several Norris ancestors who fought for independence.  Keep up the good work as students, my children.  I love you.  

 

Grandpa

M__d_army_in_front_of_house

Grandpa and Grandma Norris

Stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas

1952

 

 

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*http://constitution.org/bor/eng_bor.htm

**http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1478-0542.003/abstract

 

The American Revolution: Unjustified Rebellion or Unavoidable Self-defense?

In 1776, King George III was violating written law, the 1215 Magna Carta and the 1689 Declaration of Rights that had been imposed on government officials by the English people.  1) Written law placed strict limits on what government officials, kings, academia, militarists, clergy, etc. could do.  2) The king was required to sign a contract, a Magna Carta, before being installed upon the throne.  3) In 1689, government officials were exploiting the people in spite of the Magna Carta.  At that time, the people refused to accept a king until he and his queen took oaths and signed an explicit contract.  That document was a Bill of Rights, if you will, for the English people.

 

Objections by the original colonies regarding the rule of the British king began when he imposed a series of unjust laws that violated the colonists' rights as British citizens.  The colonists objected most vehemently to taxation without representation.

 

Nearing the end of 1773, the Colonists were refusing to pay taxes required by the British Parliament because their representatives had not been allowed to participate in tax enforcement decisions.  If Americans paid the duty tax on the imported tea they would be acknowledging Parliament's right to tax them.  On December 16, with three shipments of tea in Boston harbor the crisis came to a head.  In the early evening about 200 colonists descended upon the three ships and dumped the expensive shipments into harbor waters.  This act was monumental and there could no longer be any misunderstanding about the political will of Americans.

 

On September 5, 1774, the First Continental Congress came together in Philadelphia with hopes of reaching an agreement with the British king. A respectful petition was sent on October 25 to the King, pointing out acts of oppression.  Congress was still communicating the desire of Americans to remain as British subjects although Americans had a valid concern.  Alexander Hamilton expressed it well in a published pamphlet:  "The only distinction between freedom and slavery consists of this:  in the former state, man is governed by laws to which he has given his consent, either in person or, by his representative.  In the latter he is governed by the will of another" (Forrest McDonald, Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution, Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1985, 160).

 

In 1775, the Second Continental Congress convened on May 10.  The goal of the colonies was justice, not independence.  On July 5, 1775, the Continental Congress approved the Olive Branch Petition and appealed "To the King's Most Excellent Majesty, Most Gracious Sovereign" for reconciliation.  The King's response?  He refused to read the petition and on August 23 proclaimed that the colonies had "proceeded to open and avowed rebellion."*

 

The English Parliament retaliated on December 22, 1775, with the American Prohibitory Act, a declaration of unrestricted war against the colonists, claiming the right to confiscate their property.  Freedom for Americans at this point became a matter of self-defense and necessitated a new republican (republic) government.**

 

From June 1775 to December 1783, upon the recommendation of John Adams, George Washington served as commanding general of the Continental Army.  The winter at Valley Forge (1777-78) is an example of the privation suffered by the soldiers who gave their lives for liberty.  At this time, George Washington had a portion of Thomas Paine's The American Crisis read to the American army:

 

"These are the times that try men's souls.  The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.  Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.  What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly:  it is dearness only that gives every thing its value."***

 

In 1776, on July 4, the Second Continental Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence, and the American nation was born.

Try_mens_souls

*http://www.learner.org/workshops/primarysources/revolution/docs/olive.html

**http://www.manhattanrarebooks-history.com/prohibitory_act.htm

***http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/37676

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The Paper Trail of Liberty

There is a rich orthodoxy that brought the universal principles of the Declaration to the American mind.  That the nation was founded upon the principles of God's Word is well documented by the founding compacts, covenants and constitutions.

In 1620, the Pilgrims drafted our nation's first self-governing document, the Mayflower Compact:  "We… having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, do… solemnly and mutually in ye presence of God, and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politic…  And by Virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the General good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience."*

Signing_the_mayflower_compact_large

The King of England left the colonists alone for 150 years.  Without the albatross of paternalistic authoritarianism, the colonists experienced the benefits of personal responsibility and hard work.  People would come together with their pastor or a prominent student of the Bible as moderator and search the Scriptures for principles of government that would uphold civility in the community.

In 1630, the famous sermon by John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, reflected the great sense of purpose that has prevailed since the arrival of the Pilgrims.  Later quoted repeatedly by Ronald Reagan, Winthrop declared:  "We are to be 'a City upon a hill,' a beacon of light for the world to follow."  He continued, "The eyes of all people are upon us.  So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world" (Robert C. Winthrop, "A Model of Christian Charity," discourse written aboard the Arbella during the voyage to Massachusetts, 1630, in Life and Letters of John Winthrop, 1867, 19).

 

In 1638, the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut stated:  "[We] enter into a combination and confederation together to maintain and preserve the liberty and purity of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ which we now profess" (Text Version, Liberty Library, rendered into HTML by Jon Roland of the Constitution Society).

 

In 1772, Samuel Adams stated:  "The right to freedom being a gift from God Almighty… the rights of Christians may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institutions of the great Law Giver which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament."  Being under authority is not being under control.  It is being under God's protection.  The help provided by God-ordained authorities can be illustrated by the protective wall or "breakwater" that shields boats in a harbor from devastation.  Getting the craft into a harbor may be inconvenient, but the barrier tames the waves and keeps boats safe.  Similarly, parents, employers and police may be an inconvenience at times but they play an important role in our progress.  God's benevolent instruction is evident at several levels of responsibility and authority for government (Romans 13:1-3).

 

This is, of course, not an exhaustive list, but the truth about the impartial and non-sectarian God-honoring foundations so highly treasured by immigrants is what causes the atheistic frenzy.  They must revise history and then control what is taught as history!

 

*http://www.mayflowerhistory.com/PrimarySources/MayflowerCompact.php

 

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Natural Law vs. Secular Law

The natural-law philosophy, foundational to the American constitution, is in direct conflict with secular law.

 

The atheistic-secular philosophy for law identifies with what Solon of Athens described as "government by incalculable and changeable decrees" (Will and Ariel Durant, The Story of Civilization, Vol. II, The Life of Greece, Simon and Schuster, 1939, 118).  No ~ a solid basis is necessary for prosperity and the self-government enablements of man, for which the Constitution was written.  Secular law leads to political adventurism, exploitation, death and slavery.

 

Separation of the three branches of government (checks and balances) is vital, but what about the Declaration of Independence pattern for separation from hierarchical rule?  This is outlined in the Bill of [citizen] Rights and intended to prevent government servants from perverting established law to grant rights that are harmful to the public.  They are also intended to prevent government servants from using the public's treasury to subsidize slothful citizens and thereby attract an irresponsible voting block.  

"Liberty and security in government depend not on the limits, which the rulers may please to assign to the exercise of their own powers, but on the boundaries, within which their powers are circumscribed by the Constitution.  With us, the powers of magistrates, call them by whatever name you please, are the grants of the people…  The supreme power is in them [the people]; and in them, even when the Constitution is formed, and government is in operation, the supreme power still remains.  A portion of their authority they, indeed, delegate; but they delegate that portion in whatever manner, in whatever measure, for whatever time, to whatever persons, and on whatever conditions they choose to fix" (Supreme Court Justice James Wilson, Lectures, 1790-1791).

 

The limited purpose for judicial independence is to enable judges to settle disputes without being pressured by special interests.  When judges establish policies by legislating or administrating, they have seriously violated their jurisdiction and become fascistic.  That is, they are overriding and preventing the people as sovereigns whose exclusive authority it is to elect like-minded representatives to do the legislating and serve as administrators. 

 

"The great object of my fear is the federal judiciary.  That body, like gravity, ever acting, with noiseless foot, and unalarming advance, gaining ground step by step, and holding what it gains, is engulfing insidiously the special governments into the jaws of that which feeds them."*  Upholding the intent and meaning of "certain unalienable [supreme] rights" of the people, outlined in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, is indispensable.  Laws that protect sodomy, same-sex marriage, abortion, and the privileges of teacher tenure are a violation of essential American principles that protect the public from exposure to unsavory and virulent evil practices.  On the other hand, laws that protect a strong, responsible citizen majority are crucial to the survival of self-government and liberty from tyrannical government rule.  

 

As long as judges do not use their independence to twist the meaning of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to mask an authoritarian secular agenda, the American principles for life and liberty are not impaired or diminished.  All citizens, including judges, have the duty to protect the unalienable God-given rights to life and responsible use of liberty for others.

Judicial-activism

For more information or to purchase Restoring Education Central to American Greatness:

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* (Thomas Jefferson, letter to Judge Spencer Roane, March 9, 1821, www.marksquotes.com/Founding-Fathers/Jefferson/index7.htm)

 

Telling Taxpayers the Truth

The Declaration of Independence is universal and immortal in scope. It provides the design for freedom, justice and tolerance.

 

In their quest for liberty, our Founding Fathers focused upon 1) the conspicuous Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God, 2) the Declaration of Independence, 3) the governing character of humility, 4) the Golden Rule, and 5) the morality of the Ten Commandments.  The Constitution was prepared and establishedThe Constitution is the tool for implementing that design of freedom, justice and tolerance.

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Leftist union bosses and unelected judges who allege entitlement to dictate our laws ARE THE ENEMIES of the American concept of man under God over government. Laws should reflect the will of the people who choose like-minded representatives to establish their laws. 

 

The purpose of Restoring Education Central to American Greatness is to tell people the TRUTH. When taxpayers realize what is happening, they resolve to restore their control.  For example, most Americans would be appalled to know how their education tax is being used in captive student classrooms. As a citizen, your help in this important matter is needed.

 

After reading only four chapters of the book, a public school teacher from Ames, Iowa said in amazement, “This was not taught to me in American history.”  She offered some great ideas for improving education; I agreed, but had to tell her that those ideas could not be instituted.  The problem that must be corrected in order to effect the changes she is looking for goes much deeper than that: it is with the system itself. The problem is that parents and the great majority of teachers no longer have control over what is being taught.

 

 

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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American Principle Fifteen: Benevolence of God for Man Is Recognized by Our Founding Fathers

This concludes the rehearsal of immortal principles central to liberty and American greatness as found in the Declaration of Independence.  We believe in them because they reflect the unrelenting power of creation's God.  Compromise of any of these principles leads to harmful consequences.  Renewed exposure to these fifteen American principles is our most powerful weapon.  It is the light of truth that fortifies the minds of men and women, boys and girls.  Americans need not be enslaved for lack of knowledge.

 

 

"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."

Declaration of Independence

 

It is the open expression of faith in the nonsectarian God of creation and the unchanging laws of nature that put an end to atheistic secular oppression and deprivation in human history.

 

"The very name of patriotism is indeed become a jest with some men; which would be much stranger than it is, had not so many others made a jest of the thing, serving their own base and wicked ends, under the pretext and color of it.  But there will be hypocrites in politics, as well as in religion.  Nor ought so sacred a name [patriotism] so fall into contempt, however it may have been prostituted and profaned, to varnish over crimes.  And those times are perilous indeed, wherein men shall be only lovers of their own selves, having no concern for the good of the public.

 

"… Is there a Christian, who is required to love all men, and to do good to all, as he may have opportunity for it; is there a Christian, who does not love even his brethren, the members of the same body with himself?  Is there a Christian, who is void of all generous solicitude for his country's welfare?  Is there, who has no desire to see it in a prosperous and flourishing condition?  Who has no pleasure in actually seeing it so?  Is there, who has no grief, in beholding its calamities?  No disposition to serve it?  Such a person, though he were of a private character, would be a reproach not only to his religion, a religion of charity and beneficence, but even to our own common nature, as corrupt and depraved as it is.  But how much more infamous were this, in persons of public character?  In those on whom the welfare of their country, under providence immediately depends?" (Jonathan Mayhew, D.D., Pastor of the West Church in Boston … to the House of Representatives, 1754, An Election Sermon).

 

"To read the Constitution as the charter for a secular state is to misread history, and to misread it radically.  The Constitution was designed to perpetuate a Christian order" (R.J. Rushdoony, The Nature of the American System, Ross House Books, 2002).

Image_in_god_we_trust

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...

 

For previous blog entries on similar topics, simply go to this site and scroll down:

http://davidanorris.posterous.com/

 

Like on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Restoring-Education-Central-to-American-Greatne...

 

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